Rachel Getting Married (2008) Reviews

• Performances Outpace Story

  goldwriting2008-10-04

  In every actor's career there comes a moment where the critics and audiences rally around jumping for joy about how they've just witnessed a breakthrough performance. As stunning as these performances are, the term "breakthrough" always felt a little out of place to me since it's only on rare occasions the actor in question is relatively new. Most times they are people who have been pounding the boards and scraping the screen for years. In those terms, the breakthrough is nothing more than a large group of people seeing that actor in a new light for the first time, mostly in something they never imagined before. Now the newly colored spotlight falls on Anne Hathaway and her powerful turn as Kym in Rachel's Getting Married. The film is a slice of life piece detailing a small space of time, only a few days, where Kym returns home from a rehab clinic just in time for her sister Rachel's wedding. Anyone who has ever taken part in arranging a wedding, especially one taking place in the family home, knows the extreme stress already present, so toss a young, partially unstable girl into the mix and top it off with a nice coating of family denial and dark skeletons in the hallway closet, then you get the full picture of this film. Relationships are strained, ties pulled so tight and taut they could snap and still they try to work it out through screaming, laughing and crying (not necessarily in that order). After all, it's about a wedding, who's not happy at those? Before giving Anne her due credit, let me shed some light on someone most people won't know off the top of their heads. Rosemarie DeWitt plays the title role of Rachel and she does it with the utmost tenderness and subtlety. What she brings across is the inherent hatred, resentment and unending compassion sisters can feel for each other, even through the worst of storms. With a film more comfortable in the category of "ensemble piece", Rosemarie is the catalyst and pushes the energy along, changing and charging every one of her scenes. But the light shines brightest on Anne Hathaway as Kym, the ex-junkie, ex-alcoholic, ex-return rehab patient bordering on becoming an ex-family member. Audiences claim this as a breakthrough performance because they fell in love with Anne in The Princess Diaries movies, Ella Enchanted and the wonderfully wicked The Devil Wears Prada. Yet what they might not remember is she's played rougher, tougher roles in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, showing the more mature and adult side of her skills. So I wasn't all that shocked to witness the brilliance she brought to this film, but I will celebrate it all the same. Anne jumps in and exposes a vulnerability, a cavern of pain and lost love, which drives the emotional core of the picture. From opening credits to the closing moment, she is the elephant in the room everyone must deal with and the magical point is this is the first time where the audience can begin to empathize with the elephant and not the onlookers. I can't end the acting portion of this review without bringing up Bill Irwin and Debra Winger as well. Bill plays her father and churns out a tenderness only an accomplished actor such as himself could generate. There are such small moments, such tiny fractures in his facade which allow you to peer into the heart of a man trying to choose between his greatest love and his greatest loss. On the other side, Debra Winger plays her mother, who has chosen to block out the pain in her past and skate by the rest of her life, allowing the blackness and hurt to fester and suffocate any chance at a real connection with her daughters. As you can read, the acting on display here is sensational and will undoubtedly be remembered during awards season. As a total film, I'm not sure the story reaches the same heights. A lot of great scenes and spectacular moments are created, but the story lacks cohesion. A particular subplot about the family and its deep love for music is mentioned and referred to over and over, but never fully explained or explored, which weighs down later scenes during the wedding celebration and the overlong musical sequences. During most of the musical moments, all I really wanted was to get back to the story, back to the family and to Kym. Also, the connection between Rosemarie and her soon-to-be husband Sydney (played by Tunde Adebimpe) never quite comes across. There is a wonderful moment during their wedding vows, but it could have been helped even more if their relationship had been more centered earlier on. On the directing front, Jonathan Demme, with the assistance of a touchingly tender script from Jenny Lumet, helps craft a reality we can all believe in, a home we can all feel we've been to before. Much of this intimacy and nuance came from the free form style of camera movement, with the actors never knowing where and when the camera was going to appear on them. Everyone was basically playing everything from the moment he yelled action, so there were emotional surprises around every pan of the camera. That technique gave the movie a certain level of improv or even documentary feeling, like the audience was the most silent of voyeurs. Recommendation: A powerful series of moments, filled with terrific acting, that don't quite come together as a film. Certainly has great value to witness, but the theater experience might not be necessary. Also, this really is meant for those viewers not afraid to open themselves up to it.

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• I really wanted to like it, but it was AWFUL!

  pnwgirl2009-05-23

  This utterly uninspiring movie left me inspired to do one thing: write my first review on IMDb. I was pretty excited by the premise of the movie, but by 10 minutes in, I realized that it wasn't going to take me anywhere but to the medicine cabinet for some Excedrin. It's hard to know where to start in describing this cinematic train wreck. First, there was the camera work. Frenetic, bobbing, jerking back and forth, it gave the impression of two college students filming a documentary, and a bad one at that. Then there was the dialog. In many places it just went on too long. Pointless long scenes that didn't advance the story or even appear to have meaning. I'm astounded and I'm not quite sure how they did this, but despite the seemingly compelling subject matter, I managed to get through the film without connecting to even one of the characters. You are just never drawn into the story, the characters, or anything else. It's like this movie fails to get you to care. Basically, I felt like I was watching a bad amateur documentary. It meandered, stalled in places, failed to connect, and had no discernible message. Just "splat". "Here's our story, make something of it." Or not. I didn't.

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• This Film Serves No Discernible Purpose

  elena-l-adams2009-05-08

  I'm currently trying to get through the reception dancing scene. I'm so very close to turning this movie off, but wanted to check the IMDb ratings before making a decision. I wish I'd done that before starting it. This film just seems to go on forever. I thought it was going to be an interesting look into a family struggling with addiction. It appears to have nothing to say whatsoever. Kym's story doesn't resonate with me at all. All the characters are selfish and two-dimensional, and I can't believe that people in the real world speak the way they do. Oh, and I honestly thought Sydney must have been mentally challenged for the first half of the movie. They seem like the most unlikely couple. On top of that the multicultural wedding bonanza isn't rich and wonderful, but rather trite and shallow: a pathetic attempt by a spoiled rich kid to show she's a woman of the world. Other reviewers have complained about the camera work, and I must agree. It is actually making me nauseous. It doesn't feel "real", it feels lazy. There isn't a single thing in this film that stands out. The story could do with some serious editing, and the directing is a scrambled mess. Maybe if it were half the length and shot without the stupid hand held camera it would have a chance. Don't bother with this one.

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• Kept Looking At My Watch

  archiecm2009-02-21

  First of all the title is very misleading. It should be titled: "Kym at Rachel's Wedding." It is much more about Kym so why not be honest? Others have covered some complaints I also had. Did anyone say, "It's a good film from which to learn details of a dysfunctional family? If you come from one you don't need to see this movie--this is a rehash of your own hell house! In other words, what could be learned from watching all these mixed up people?" One reviewer loved the a capella Neil Young song during the vows. It was about YOUNG'S attraction for a waitress in a diner. Couldn't the groom have found or written a song that described HIS feelings? And I really did look at my watch during the twenty minute wedding party scene of legs and butts. And I looked at the audience, the walls, back at the rear at the box where the projector was projecting. I also lost it when Kym gives her self-centered talk during a couple toast. Anger creeps in and self-pity. But then she rights the ship and says some gracious things. I got the feeling that Kym won out at that moment leaving the group relieved. It is then that Rachel reacts the opposite way--remembering only the first half of the toast and rubbing Kym's face in her shortcomings. After that I didn't care if a meteor fell on the entire property.

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• Insultingly Simpleminded, Utterly Self-Indulgent

  billmarsano2009-02-08

  Jonathan Demme, who apparently doesn't like working with actors, so it's said, and is much more interested in music, says his resumé, indulges himself thoroughly and to excess in this unrewarding boondoggle. And he's added something, too: a tendency to wallow in a vision of a diversity-loving tomorrow that a) helps to destroy narrative flow by distraction and b) insults diversity by using it as mere window-dressing. That is, all of these things—the black groom, his Jamaican family, the Middle Eastern (?) musicians, the Indian wedding motif—are simply and condescendingly dragged onto the screen, where they only distract and confuse because they don't actually mean anything or contribute to the narrative. And who is responsible for such nonsense as the protracted toasting scene (only Kym's toast is important; the rest are junk buddy stuff—and I've seen better "I love you, man" gushing in beer commercials) and (god help us!) the sappy '70s-style wedding vows complete with a singing groom and the subsequent dishwasher contest. I'm blaming Jenny Lumet, whose script (sribbled in a brisk severn weeks) despite all such camouflage is revealed as steadfastly and relentlessly simpleminded: No matter what Kym the Re-hab Queen does—drive off a bridge and drown her baby brother in a drug-addled haze, set the house on fire, bully her sister into betraying her best friend, lie her way through re-hab, steal from everyone, and, on the eve of her sister's wedding, engage in screaming fisticuffs with her iceberg mother and then try to kill herself with a station wagon—no matter WHAT she does there is always a forgiving sisterly hug to resolve it because, as Ms. Lumet wants us to know, Blood trumps everything else! After all, she's my sister! It is a tribute to Anne Hathaway that she can come out of this as well as she does. Somewhere in the middle of this noisy torture I suddenly remembered "Monsoon Wedding," another movie that uses a wedding to frame a handful of story threads and the pot of family poison at its center. The difference is that in "Monsoon Wedding" all of the story lines were made to work and the music was terrific. It's three times the movie "Rachel" is.

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