After the Wedding
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: August 9, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
19
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Observer (UK)Simran HansNov 4, 2019
This story of motherhood and moral conundrums, of privilege and philanthropy and “worthy causes” is one whose dramatic twists and soapy reveals feel at odds with the cultivated tone of serious, muted elegance. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelAug 16, 2019
There’s a lot to be admired here, and After the Wedding certainly gives you a lot to think about. It just doesn’t quite make you feel all the feels. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfFeb 19, 2019
After the Wedding contains enough domestic revelations for several seasons of something delicious, but Freundlish’s showdowns all seem to dissipate or get curtailed abruptly. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 29, 2019
It would be difficult to invest in if not for its two main stars who work hard to elevate the overly engineered plot, filling in the emotional gaps left by the haphazard script. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 25, 2019
It’s a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy. Read full review
50
Original-CinKaren GordonAug 15, 2019
The cast is made up of some of the finest and most interesting actors working in film today. And for the most part they’re doing thoughtful work. Unfortunately, there’s only so much they can do. The film doesn’t go emotionally deep enough to pay off. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 13, 2019
There’s a Danish film called “After the Wedding” which was released here in 2007 and nominated for the foreign film Oscar. It didn’t win — it had the bad luck to be nominated against “The Lives of Others,” which was even better. But it’s a great film. The new After the Wedding is the American remake, and it’s fascinating. That is, it’s fascinating in that it’s not even close to great, despite using the same scenario. Indeed, it would be a real lesson in filmmaking to watch both movies back to back, just to see how to do things and how not to do things. And, just to clarify, the new After the Wedding would be in the “how not to do things” category. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedAug 9, 2019
The value of sensitive, balanced acting to enhance a mediocre movie has never been more evident than in After the Wedding, a ruminative though pointless remake of Susanne Bier’s 2006 Danish melodrama of the same name. Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams are splendid bookends in a well directed yet clumsily written sudser by Moore’s husband, Bart Freundlich. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzAug 9, 2019
This is a Sad Rich People movie, no more so than a lot of American films dating back to the dawn of cinema, but it's no "The Leopard" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" or "The Great Gatsby" or you-name-it. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 8, 2019
In too many scenes Freundlich prefers the arch heaviness of pained expressions in posh surroundings when what you’re waiting for is the messiness of humans letting fly after their careful worlds have been upended. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearAug 7, 2019
This is Williams’ spotlight, and it’s worth slogging through some of the soapier-to-sludgier aspects to watch her ply her craft Read full review
50
The PlaylistAndrew BundyAug 7, 2019
Overall, despite a few profound explosions of emotion, the remake is more tonally overbearing than it is dramatically rewarding. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiAug 7, 2019
Though technically a film, with all of its corresponding qualities, After The Wedding primarily exists as an actor’s showcase for its main quartet. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 29, 2019
Despite a stellar cast led by Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, After The Wedding never cuts very deeply, staying on the surface of a tale that ought to tear into the viewer’s soul the way it does these tormented characters. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 29, 2019
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. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnJan 29, 2019
There are flashes of subtle resentment to Williams’ performance that register as some of her best work in ages, so it’s unfortunate that the movie’s calculated assemblage of sentimental beats dominate the show. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 16, 2019
None of the characters has a true home. Comedies end with weddings, with order replacing chaos, but After the Wedding is not a comedy and weddings don’t fool anyone. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 12, 2019
The longer that After the Wedding goes on, the more it concentrates on the woes of white folk, to the exclusion of all else, and you gradually realize that the Third World, far from being a source of cultural tension, isn’t even a backdrop to minor domestic events on the East Coast. Read full review
40
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 8, 2019
What should be a volcano of betrayal and acrimony never fully erupts; even Moore’s brief meltdown feels staged, and Isabel is so irritatingly tranquil that Williams has no room to breathe in the role. Read full review
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