Rachel Getting Married

Released:  October 3^rd, 2008

Rated:  R

Studio:  Sony Pictures Classics

Starring:  Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger, Anna Deavere Smith, Tunde Adebimpe

Directed by:  Jonathan Demme

Written by:  Jenny Lumet

Personal Bias Alert:  identifies with Rachel, wouldn’t want to attend this wedding

8 of 10

            This isn’t my family.  I’m not from Connecticut money, my father didn’t hobnob with artists, and no one in my family is a psychologist (my psych minor is the closest we’ve got).  In my family, the weddings tend to be small affairs, and my favorite part is usually guessing how much longer we have before the table of chain smoking, oxygen sucking extended relatives blow up the reception.  And yet, I found myself connecting with this family, recognizing little moments of anguish and joy and relishing in the words they gave me to describe my own family grievances.

            Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) may get the title and the marriage, but the film is about her hurricane of a sister.  The family’s life, it seems, has been engulfed by Kym (Anne Hathaway) for most of her life.  A nasty drug addiction has caused her to bring nothing but drama and disappointment to their clan, and the mistrust that has instilled is apparent as soon as Kym checks out of rehab for her sister’s wedding.  There’s still love there; Rachel embraces her with a joyous smile as soon as Kym appears and her father’s paternal care is embodied by how often he tries to feed her.  Slowly though, as Kym’s behavior proves to be erratic and inappropriate, their guards come up and old wounds are opened.

            Before this film, I never would have described Hathaway as a natural actress.  I liked her in several things, but I could always feel her effort, could always see the actress behind the character.  That’s what makes her performance in Rachel Getting Married so revelatory.  Watching her is like seeing the kid you’ve been rooting for finally hit that home run.  You knew he had it in him, it just took him a while to get there.  Hathaway finally boldly and loudly stepped into her character’s shoes, and it feels just right.

            Rosemarie DeWitt serves as Hathaway’s co-star, counterpoint, and foil.  For all Kym’s loudness, DeWitt’s Rachel is reserved and solid.  Having played a similar role in my own family, I must admit that I connect to Rachel more, and perhaps because of that mildly prefer DeWitt’s performance to Hathaway’s.  Make no mistake, I think both are excellent (along with Bill Irwin as their father), but DeWitt is the one that gets under my skin.  There’s a large, dramatic scene about halfway through the film in which DeWitt lays bare Rachel’s feelings, and she embodies the way I feel towards my family so completely that she actually helped me to better understand my own emotions.

            I give DeWitt a lot of credit for her performance, but of course none of that would have been possible without writer Jenny Lumet.  This is the only screenplay she’s had produced, and its one hell of an effort.  Aside from Rachel, my favorite part is the way she captures the flow of conversations, how they twist and overlap before veering off abruptly into an entirely different direction.  These are the kinds of weighted conversations you have with people you’ve known your whole life, and Lumet captures it in a way not often seen in films.  The screenplay pulls off so many difficult things such as this, that I can’t imagine it’s the only one Lumet has in her.

            Lumet certainly took risks with her screenplay, as did Jonathan Demme with his direction.  I liked many of the choices he made, like shooting handheld to make you feel like you’re jostling through the wedding with everyone else, but some didn’t work out as well.  He indulges a bit too much in the wedding and other extraneous goings-on, and the film loses momentum because of it.  It reminds me of something Christopher Plummer recalled Collin Farrell saying to him while working with the distractible Terrence Malick:  “Aw, we’re just going to be a couple of Ospreys.  He’ll shoot the Ospreys, not us.”  The problem here is that Rachel Getting Married is a character study, so it’s a detriment when the characters become background to the Ospreys.

            Despite this occasional wandering, Rachel Getting Married remains one of my favorite films.  It feels like a very personal film for Lumet and Demme, but it’s open just enough for others to find themselves in.

Other Notes:

Ø  The public’s afraid of me too, Kym.

Ø  The moment with Kym in the kitchen after the dishwasher scene is one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve seen.

Ø  Can I hug this film?  I want to hug this film.