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EXCLUSIVE: Tonight\u2019s Sundance kickoff film, After The Wedding, fits a festival emphasis on inclusion and diversity. Even though director Bart Freundlich didn\u2019t set out to do that when he made a film inspired by the 2006 Danish film by Susanne Bier, his decision to swap the gender of the two principal characters opened a wealth of creative complexities for the characters.<\/p>\n
The principal characters in Bier\u2019s Oscar-nominated film were male. Here, the leads are Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore, the latter of whom is the wife and a fixture of Freundlich\u2019s films. Williams plays a woman who fled New York and has devoted her life to running an orphanage in the slums of Calcutta. She\u2019s lured back to Gotham by an offer from a media mogul and philanthropist \u2013 played by Moore \u2013 to donate millions of dollars. Soon, the mogul has her accompanying her opulent Oyster Bay estate, where she is introduced to her husband (Billy Crudup) and 21-year old daughter (Abby Quinn), who\u2019s about to get married. The mogul wants the orphanage worker to attend her daughter\u2019s wedding, and things get complicated, with revelations that upend the lives of each woman the people who love them.<\/p>\n
Freundlich certainly didn\u2019t make the gender swap to suit the whims of a festival; it was basically the only way he could see to make a remake of Bier\u2019s film worthwhile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a big fan of Susanne, and she had already made a great movie,\u201d Freundlich told Deadline. \u201cSo what other reason was there to make this, other than doing it in a different language? I loved the emotional complexity that was there, and the fact it was primarily about these relationships among people, within this big splashy melodrama narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Freundlich\u2019s Oscar winning wife who first put him on the gender swap track.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was first brought up to me by Julianne, as we were watching the movie. She just said, \u201cnow that\u2019s the role I would want to play in this movie.\u201d It was one of the guys. Of course, it went in one ear and out the other. Then one of the producers [Silvio Muraglia] brought up the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said producer Joel Michaels: \u201cBart immediately understood the intention of the film, and spoke to me about the story in the way I always envisioned it. I found he tapped right into the complex psyche and psychology of all the characters. And with Julie on board, she\u2019s an actor magnet and it easier to bring Michelle and Billy into the film.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freundlich took a crack at the story that way over a month, and was delighted by the results.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt fundamentally changed so many things about the film,\u201d he said. \u201cSo much of the movie is about being a parent. It is different, being a father, and the big surprises in the movie that got enhanced, through changing genders. I thought some of those revelations might work against me, but it added layers of complexity. The character Michelle plays was originated by Mads Mikkelsen, and the psychology made it deeper and appealing on a writing level.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is likely that Hollywood will be making more movies built around female protagonists and antagonists, and Freundlich found it an education to break down how much did and didn\u2019t require alteration just because of the gender of the characters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to make certain qualities specific to being a woman, but what I didn\u2019t have to change were the human attributes and that was rich for me to discover,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is very much about power dynamics. My wife plays a multimillionaire business woman, and a lot of this was an exploration about what it means to be a parent, a mother, an independent person. It happened it was a really good time to remake this film, with everything that is going on in the world. But what it mostly gave me was room to discover, because Susanne had done such a good job on the original. We didn\u2019t have to explain why this was a woman worth tens of millions of dollars, who\u2019s also a mother and philanthropist. And that felt really positive in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sundance has been something of a good luck charm for Freundlich, who is introducing his third film at this festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 22 years ago that I brought my directorial debut, The Myth of Fingerprints to Sundance, and during that trip I met my wife,\u201d he said. Well actually, she\u2019s in that film but the festival is where they became a couple. \u201cI came back later and showed World Traveler, which had my wife and Billy Crudup in it, this after we premiered the film in Toronto. It doesn\u2019t seem that long ago, but our kids are 21 and 17. It is nice to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
View this article at Deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EXCLUSIVE: Tonight\u2019s Sundance kickoff film, After The Wedding, fits a festival emphasis on inclusion and diversity. Even though director Bart Freundlich didn\u2019t set out to do that when he made a film inspired by the 2006 Danish film by Susanne Bier, his decision to swap the gender of the two principal characters opened a wealth
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