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After The Wedding (Denmark 2006,120 min. dir: Susanne Bier, cast: Mads Mikkelsen (Jacob), Rolf Lassgard (Jorgen), Sids Babett Knudsen (Helene)

Melodrama is what hits your tear ducts when you think you’re safe. After The Wedding is a master class in how it works. Melodrama comes from 18^th Century narratives that were spoken over musical melodies used to pump up the mood. Sort of like Cialis commercials on TV.

After the Wedding is about a Danish expat who lives in a typical third-world country. He does good work by teaching in a primary school. As the film begins, he contacted by a millionaire back home who is considering giving a giant endowment to the school. The catch: Jacob (the teacher) must appear in person to audition for the funds.

He flies home to Denmark and arrives on the eve of the big weekend wedding of the millionaire’s (Jorgen) daughter. Of course, he is invited. Weddings and funerals are always fun occasions for a movie, and Susanne Bier knows how to take us down the aisle. Jacob’s first surprise is meeting Jorgen’s wife, Helene. He dated her! Then he meets her daughter, the bride. And the he finds out Helene was pregnant when they split up! His daughter is getting married! (Exclamation points to seem cool and hide my own embarrassment at being hooked on the story).

The whole film reminds me of two screenwriters telling stories in a bar saying, “Can you top this one?” But it works. These actors earn their pay. Jacob and Helene still have passion in their eyes and in their body language. When we learn that Jorgen is conveniently dying of an incurable disease, it all makes movie sense.

Susan Bier went on to make Things We Lost in the Fire, which starts with a funeral. Weddings and funerals and recitativo singers playing to a courtly audience are all fertile furrows where drama nurtured by melody sprouts melodrama. Forget the negative soap opera connotation of the word. Susanne Bier and an excellent cast make After The Wedding worth our hope and tears as two lovers finally find each other.