Medicare For All

Movie Monday

I’ve decided you really can’t review a good movie (or perhaps any movie) unless you see it twice. (Of course, LOTR and now Pirates 3 seem to need a zillion viewings.) The first viewing is for plot. The second for, let’s say, all the other stuff.

That’s what happened with After The Wedding (2006). Or rather Efter brylluppet as it’s called in its homeland, Denmark.

I have no idea what first attracted me to this movie. Perhaps the subtitles since I’m a sucker for subtitles which change slowly enough for me to read them. Perhaps Mads Mikkelsen (now there’s a first name you don’t see every day in the U.S.) with his precisely chiseled facial bones.

Whatever. After the Wedding is a fast, concise, little melodrama with all the best strum und drang of a U.S. soap opera but it's done so, so well.

My first viewing was to answer all the whys: Why was Jacob brought back to Denmark from India? What was Jorgen’s agenda? Was it benign or evil? Was Jacob really a good guy? What kind of relationship would Jacob and Anna have? There were a lot of questions. Soap opera questions to be sure but even great literature is soap opera but done better.

Then for the second viewing; this was the “Oh, I see.” viewing. The second time you recognize the clues and the movie puzzle either meshes finely and you have a good movie or it hangs limply and you just wasted your money and time.

This movie meshes finely. Perhaps all the pieces join too tightly in the end. Perhaps it is the ultimate “Where Are They Now?” ad where you find your past and it fits nicely into your future. But the twist is there. That ubiquitous twist that moves competent movies into a higher plane.

For this movie has all the elements for corny sentiment. Hell, it even has a deus ex machina (and this time he looks and acts like one) pulling all the strings.

But then..... Then everyone pays the price. Even the deus. No one comes out of this plot unscathed. Perhaps Jacob has the most heart-wrenching choice since he must decide between his two families but Jorgen pays an ultimate price. When Jacob tells Helene that rich people don’t have ideals he doesn’t know Jorgen’s secret and neither he nor we will learn what angst went into Jorgen's decision to contact Jacob in the first place.

OK, I know this sounds so very cryptic but the plot is the secret (or rather two secrets) and the secrets make the theme. So watch it. It’s a very short 120 minutes. Watch and find out what happens after the wedding. It will hold your interest.