Isabel, co-founder of an orphanage in India, travels to New York to meet a potential benefactor, Theresa, who is about to sell her company and seeking a worthy charity to donate to. Isabel is reluctant to travel to New York due to her responsibility at the orphanage and leave a boy whom she raised. Despite her frustration at having to travel halfway across the world, Isabel agrees to the meeting, which falls the day before Theresa's daughter Grace's wedding. Theresa invites Isabel to the wedding as a courtesy for her coming all this way to meet with her. At the wedding, Isabel is surprised to see Theresa's husband is her former flame, Oscar. During Theresa's wedding toast, she also discovers that Grace is in fact Isabel's own daughter by Oscar, who was supposed to have been given up for adoption. Isabel learns that after the couple parted ways, Oscar secretly returned and raised Grace himself, before meeting and marrying Theresa years later. Though denying she knew Isabel's identity beforehand, Theresa pushes Isabel to get to know Grace and reacquaint with Oscar, and finds repeated excuses to extend Isabel's stay. She even makes her donation contingent on Isabel remaining in New York. Eventually, it transpires that Theresa is dying of cancer—a secret she has kept from her entire family. Her efforts with Isabel have been to install her as a new mother figure for both Grace and Theresa's own eight-year-old twin boys. By the film's conclusion, all the secrets are out and the characters come to an understanding before Theresa's passing. Isabel briefly returns to her orphanage, inviting the boy she rescued and raised from infancy to join her in New York.
Cast
Julianne Moore as Theresa Young, Oscar's wife and Grace's mother, a millionaire and benefactor whom Isabel must meet
In February 2018, Julianne Moore was set to star in an American remake of the Danish film by Susanne Bier, and will see the leading roles changed from male to female. Diane Kruger was also cast. However, in April 2018, Michelle Williams replaced Kruger. In May 2018, Billy Crudup and Abby Quinn joined the cast. Principal production began in May 2018.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2019. Shortly after, Sony Pictures Classics acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, and set it for an August 9, 2019, release.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 44% based on 152 reviews, and an average rating of 5.76/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "After the Wedding benefits from solid casting and strong source material, yet proves stubbornly resistant to spark to emotional life." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Variety's Peter Debruge wrote: "This sensitive remake of Susanne Bier's overcooked Danish Oscar nominee has shrewdly been flipped from a male-driven meller to an emotional showcase for Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore." Debruge praises the film for its subtlety, as it "strips away anything excessive, allowing subtext to surface in the quiet spaces between dialogue." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Bart Freundlich's American remake of the Bier film flips the gender of the main characters, yielding predictably strong performances from Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams but otherwise removing the teeth from a melodrama that grows increasingly preposterous as it crawls toward its weepy conclusion." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4, and wrote: "It's a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy." David Fear of Rolling Stone gave the film a mixed review but praised Williams: "This is Williams’ spotlight, and it's worth slogging through some of the soapier-to-sludgier aspects to watch her ply her craft."
