Polish Wedding 1998

Jadzia, Lena Olin, is the matriarch at the center of a bustling Polish-American family: four sons and a daughter, plus Sofie, Ziggy’s wife who works with Jadzia as a cleaner, and Ziggy and Sofie’s baby who makes the household feel even more alive. The household hums with routine and hidden tensions as Jadzia navigates loyalty, duty, and desire.

Jadzia’s marriage to Bolek, Gabriel Byrne, a baker, feels steady on the surface, even though she became pregnant with him when she was just 15. Yet beneath that stability runs a long-term secret relationship with Roman, Rade Šerbedžija, a connection that complicates her sense of obligation to family and tradition. Her daughter Hala, Claire Danes, is a high-school dropout who is expected to help around the house, and Jadzia’s hopes for her future are tethered to the family’s needs rather than personal dreams.

Hala’s flirting with Russell Schuster, Adam Trese, the neighborhood police officer who knows her middle brothers Kaz and Witek, sparks a dangerous attraction. They sleep together once, and Russell’s discomfort grows as their bond deepens. On Sundays, Russell’s gaze lingers on Hala at church, fueling a quiet but persistent pull between them that culminates in a kiss on the church steps after services.

One night, when Jadzia arrives home late and finds her key won’t work, she slips in through a basement window and unexpectedly encounters Hala sneaking out. Before Jadzia can react, Hala blurts out a plea about not hurting her baby, a moment that reveals the fragility of the family’s carefully guarded secrets.

The next day, at church, the priest selects Hala for a special activity tied to her supposed purity. Jadzia confronts her daughter, and the girl leaves in defiance. To press Russell into taking responsibility, Jadzia and Sofie dress Hala in Sofie’s wedding dress and push her to push for marriage. Russell agrees to take Hala out on his motorcycle; they sleep together again, but he remains unwilling to marry her. When Hala slips in again through the basement window, Bolek notices and follows, sharing cigarettes with Hala’s youngest brother Kris, Ramsey Krull. Bolek then witnesses Jadzia in the house, fuels of jealousy and heartbreak intensify, and he follows her to Roman’s, where he’s crushed to find her with him.

Roman tries a grand gesture, offering Jadzia two tickets to Paris and a chance to run away with him. She refuses, choosing family duty over escape, and a sense of inevitability settles over the morning light as she returns home to face the consequences. March arrives with a plan: Jadzia gathers her sons to march to the Schusters’ home and demand that Russell take responsibility for impregnating Hala. Kris influences Bolek, but his anger shifts away from Russell and lands squarely on Jadzia, fueling a fresh wave of tension in the kitchen.

A confrontation turns into a tense standoff as Bolek chases Jadzia home, nearly colliding with her and then locking the door behind him. That night, the couple finds a path back to each other, making love and trying to rebuild what’s been frayed. In the soft dawn light, the whole family gathers in the kitchen, and while it seems like another quarrel, Hala discovers Jadzia and Bolek reunited in the pantry, their bond renewed.

At the Polish-American Catholic church ceremony, a youth harshly jeers that Hala’s pregnancy undermines the ideal of virginal purity, and the priest readies to rebuke her—only for Jadzia to step in and stop him, defending her daughter in a quiet, stubborn stand that preserves the family’s dignity amid public scorn.

One year later, the family’s dynamics have shifted but the core remains intact. Hala and Russell are together at her Polish family home, where they share a life with their baby, a testament to endurance and reconciliation in a world that never quite leaves them the freedom to choose without consequence. Cassidy Cirka appears as Hala’s baby, adding a final note of new life to a story about responsibility, family, and the stubborn resilience of love.