Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Our first nuff said... Rating - 3-1/2 Stars - a new day dawns at nuff said movies :)

We like black sheep, already mused about this in my review of Pieces of April, there's a certain allure when it comes to characters seeking redemption, especially when they are relatable in so far as they are every day people, people you might meet in the world of the real (hell, a moniker I've carried in my family),  facing their mistakes while trying to stand tall.

Rachel Getting Married is exactly this kind of movie. It tells the story of a family in an ongoing crisis, trying to come together on a joyful weekend so that they can celebrate the marriage of one of the daughters, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). 

At the center of the family turmoil is Kym (Anne Hathaway), out of rehab for the happy nuptials, with a history of chaos in amongst her baggage, which the family is all to prepared to deal with... As much as a family can be, trying to get to the happiness of Rachel's big day while denial, unresolved issues, sibling rivalry, family tragedy and dysfunction are all ready to break through a fragile surface.

Now comes the tough part, justifying, defending and explaining the 3-1/2 star rating - initially when I started this blog I was not going to dish out ratings on the movies I posted about, but as I've moved forward it has become a point of inner-contention for me. Ultimately a rating is a perfect final word against which others are able to compare their personal measurements of appreciation against the reviewers (Hell I do it when I read the posts of my fellow movie lovers), so here goes...

This movie is rich with performance. At this point Anne Hathaway is well on her way to official Hollywood royalty status - flawless in her performances on screen, be they the saccharine sweet fluff of The Princess Diaries, the sexiness she brought to her interpretation of Catwoman (and let's face it, she was damn sexy, the failing was in the material of The Dark Knight Rises, she was never going to be Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns), the seduction she wielded in Love & Other Drugs, and the sheer force of drama she wields in this most demanding of roles she had to date - breakthrough they called it, impressive I declare, forever redefining her role in Hollywood (and an important stepping stone to Les Misérables, which I have not to date seen)! Rachel Getting Married would ultimately lead to a well deserved Best Actress Oscar Nomination (making it must viewing for this blog), for a performance brilliantly brought to life by Ms Hathaway. 

The magic of the casting extends well beyond the casting of Kym of course, Anne Hathaway is equally matched with brilliant performances offered up by her on-screen family as embodied by Rosemarie DeWitt, Kym's sister fighting for her day in the sun as it fights against Kym's thunder; Bill Irwin in the role of Paul (Kym's father), the patriarch whose greatest joy and most profound pain is in the hands of his progeny; and Debra Winger in the role of Abby, the estranged matriarch of the family, whose emotions are deeply buried in an act of self-defense and from whom her daughters are seeking love.

At the helm of the movie is the brilliant Jonathan Demme, he of The Silence of the Lambs fame, who makes some interesting stylistic and cinematic choices, his usual exactness in framing and scene set-up exchanged for a loose and almost chaotic style which matches the dysfunction and chaos of a house and family preparing for a wedding - with a constant of flurry and activity moving in and out of the familial home. This is achieved though a loose documentary style of floating camera's moving within a scene in action so that the actors are acting whole heartedly not for the camera but within a setting in which camera's are recording, reminiscent of Robert Altman, almost voyeuristic in it's manipulation of the tone and pace. Another interesting stylistic choice is the use of live music within the film as opposed to an actual soundtrack so that the music is actually being played live during the recording (by the wedding musicians and family of actors who are a screen family of music lovers). This makes for a very realistic experience, so that you as the audience feel that you are actually watching a home movie, while intellectually you know that you are not, thankfully the script aids in this regard so that while driving a plot through the characters you are also treated to some real fly on the wall moments of honesty.

If there is a failing to this movie it is that the stylistic choices make the film somewhat inaccessible except in a totally intellectual way. I can totally appreciate the film in this regard, it is a piece of art, it's rich in emotion and story, but there were moments in this movie that lost my focus because of this, like watching an experiment, the result of which is me thinking. I mentioned Pieces of April earlier, a movie which also made use of similar camera techniques but which I felt was not as indulgent as Rachel Getting Married (the tone leaning closer to comedy in its treatment as opposed to the drama of this film, it's running time also considerably shorter) - and so it is that I return to Anne Hathaway who is completely compelling in this movie, making the watching of it totally worthwhile and therefore justifying (in my opinion) her Academy Award Nomination.

3-1/2 because the movie as a whole is not brilliant, but absolutely worth a watch because of a brilliant performance. 

Rachel Getting Married is the 4th movie I have watched and posted about from the 81st Academy Awards, and the 75th Academy Award Nominated movie watched for the purposes of this blog.

nuff said...