After the Wedding

I found the Danish film After the Wedding to be emotionally riveting and visually appealing. And not just because of its brooding star, Mads Mikkelsen, who is so handsome it almost hurts. The film wasn't perfect by any means, but it masterfully stoked the tension with the smallest glances and gestures. While the director, Susanne Bier, who co-wrote the film with Anders Thomas Jensen, really pushed her luck with distracting close-ups to create a hamhanded sense of foreshadowing (dead plants and taxidermy, anyone?), the finely wrought performances (especially Mikkelson as Jacob and Rolf Lassgard as Jorgen), believable dialogue and lovely settings—whether the saffron shades of India or cool blues and cold stone of Denmark—were truly satisfying. I also appreciated that the story's secrets were fairly quickly revealed, getting down to the true drama of human beings being pulled as tightly as harp strings in the moments of fallout.