Sometimes movies are deeply surprising. Like people, you find yourself intensely liking ones you wouldn't expect to, ones that perhaps at first glance you find little to connect over. Such was the case with Susanne Bier's After the Wedding (2006).
For the first 40 minutes of the movie or so, I just sat there in disbelief that such an implausible, strange movie existed. There's something about the way it's directed, hopping from one intense, soap-opera-like scene to the next, but also about the plot itself that makes you just shake your head at it a while.
Basically, it's the story of this guy managing an orphanage in India who travels to his native Denmark hoping to obtain financing for his orphanage. Once there, he's drawn into this incredibly complex family drama of the rich guy who's offering him the money. Invited to the wedding of the guy's daughter, he runs into his old lover who's now married to the rich guy and lo and behold, it turns out the daughter is actually his and that the rich guy raised her as his own.
As I said, I know it sounds hella improbable and weird. I kept meaning to turn it off multiple times, then never got to. Found myself drawn into the story, and not just for Mads' intensity as an actor (also the guy playing the rich man, fantastic).
From there, the plot thickens. The orphanage guy struggles to build a relationship with his newfound daughter, then learns that, in fact, nothing is accidental. The rich guy, struggling with a terminal diagnosis had tracked him down so that someone would look after his own young sons after he was dead.
There's a great scene between the two men that asks essentially - I raised your child, can I now trust you to raise mine?
For me, watching from the perspective of a world in a dire crisis of masculinity, I thought it was a brilliant point to make. So often, we focus on the financial aspects of parenthood (and with good reason). And with women taking a more leading role in the work force, the entire familial dynamic, the "bread-winner and provider" has been altered significantly, and in ways that many people seem to be struggling to cope with.
In the past, if I was going to have a child with you, the main focus would've rightly been material support. It still is, though arguably to a lesser extent, with more women than before no longer depending on a man to act as provider. That's changed things dramatically, because while men's focus still seems to be on the financial and material, the dating world is moving away from that. With women in some fields outperforming men, getting more education than men, etc., the question is no longer "will you provide for us". Men are being asked, increasingly, for emotional intelligence and other less tangible means of support, and the truth is many of them are struggling.
It's an unfair ask. All this life, being reared to "do well" professionally, to be a man who can provide, only to arrive on a dating scene where you're being asked to be something that many men, still, aren't being raised to be.
No wonder the dating scene is so weird now.
Then, on top of that, you've got the family aspect. Once, it used to be that "the right thing to do" as a man, if you got a girl pregnant was, well, to marry her, but if that wasn't in the cards, still to provide financially for her and your offspring.
Except that's not nearly enough, as this clever little movie from 20 years ago shows. The rich guy in the film has all the money in the world, and yet none of that will replace or make up for the absence of a male figure in his children's lives after he dies.
I think we're in a bad situation. For a long time, we taught women their role was primarily emotional, children-bound, etc., and obviously, there's more to us than that. Except in recent decades, we've done quite well in staking that out. Men, on the other hand, we're leaving behind, even though they're undergoing a similar role shift in some way. Because men, for about as long a time, were taught that they're purely material-bound, provider, career-oriented, etc. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Now, men have to adapt also to a shift from being "just" that to defining themselves also by who they are emotionally and psychologically in the lives of their children and partners. And yet, as a society, we just sort of expect them to shut up and roll over and know what to do.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I resonated a lot with the notion that it takes a lot more for children to be fine than financial security. Especially in a world that seems to treat good male role models and paternal figures as optional (whereas strong feminine inspiration is, quite justifiably, all the rage).
I also enjoyed the suggestion that sometimes, in order to be a good person, you're called upon to deal with the sticky messiness of your life.
Must I go halfway around the world for you to help me?
The rich man calls out after the protagonist. It's a telling line. Often, it's tempting to do kind things for strangers or do good in situations removed from our immediate personal situations. In our quite selfish world, there is this suggestion that meeting the chaos of your own personal life head-on is optional. And it's not.
Ultimately, this is the reality you are living in. The question isn't, will you elope to another where being a good person is magically easier, but rather, are you good (and strong) enough to stay and bear this one?
