Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married

Director:

Jonathan Demme

Writer:

Jenny Lumet

Starring:

Anne Hathaway
Rosemarie DeWitt
Mather Zickel
Bill Irwin
Anna Deavere Smith
Anisa George
Tunde Adebimpe
Debra Winger

Rating:

R

Quotes:

I am Shiva the destroyer, your harbinger of doom this evening.
Don't you get it, Waldo? She's making a choice not to give you your lighter because you'll torch the Self-Help library again.
Hey! Didn't I see you on Cops?

This is the time of year that Hollywood gives the mature audiences movies that are worth their time and money. The first adult garnered movie is "Rachel Getting Married" This film is a life piece detailing a small space of a few days, Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns home from a stay in a rehab clinic just in time for her sister Rachel's (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding. Kym is absurdly hopeful that her sister Rachel's wedding will be a harbinger for unconditional love from her upscale Connecticut family. Therein lies the problem as her narcissism provides the catalyst for long-simmering tensions that uncork during the preparations for a lavish, Indian-themed wedding weekend.

Kym is a partially unstable woman trying to mix with family denial and dark skeletons in the closet. Relationships between the family are strained so taut they feel like they can snap at any time, the family tries to work it out through laughing, crying and then screaming. Rachel brings to the table an inherent hatred, resentment and an unending compassion that only sisters can feel for each other, even through the worst of times. Rachel is the catalyst to the story and she pushes the energy to charge the event. Kym is an ex everything, junkie, alcoholic and rehab patient bordering on becoming an ex family member. It soon becomes clear that Kym's link to a past tragedy is at the core of the unpredictable dynamics that force confrontations and regrettable actions among the four principal family members.Rachel appears to be Kym's sensible opposite, but their alternately close and contentious relationship shows how they have not fully recovered from past resentments. Kym exposes a cavern of pain and lose, which drives the emotional core of the movie. Kym is the elephant in the room, at a reception dinner for Rachel and her soon to be husband, Kym takes the time to make it about her and tries to apologize to Rachel for causing so much pain. The father Paul, (Bill Irwin) and Mother Abby, (Debra Winger) do a wondrous job trying to protect Kym from herself. The parents are divorced and are both with another partner, Paul is with Carol (Anna Deavere Smith) and Abby is with Andrew (Jerome Le Page). This is not an issue with any of the family, they all get along.

The core tragedy is heartbreaking and is dealt with in a very sensitive way. Paul has small moments of 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. As far as an emotional bundle of nerves, Irwin is mind-blowing good. Here is a father giving his daughter away, joining forces with a new family, discovering he will be a grandfather, and trying to shield Kym through it all so she doesn't think they don't want her there. He is juggling everyone else's emotions and when his own come to the surface, he becomes a completely beaten man, all semblance of the collected facade gone. Abby has chosen to block out the pain in her past and skate through the rest of her life, allowing the blackness and hurt to fester and suffocate any chance at a real connection with her daughters. A subplot about the family and its deep love for music is mentioned and referred to over and over, but is never explored, which weighs down later scenes during the wedding celebration with an overlong musical sequence. The few scenes between Rachel and her soon to be husband, Sydney (Tunde Adebimpe) never quite come across. There is a wonderful moment when the vows are being exchanged that could have been even better if the relationship had been developed earlier in the movie.  Rachel Getting Married isn't for everyone, but for me, it hit home and was a very powerful film and held itself very well. For my best picture of 2008, this one will be very, very hard to beat.

(DVD - Mar 10, 2009)

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