Rachel Getting Married [Blu-ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV

Apr02

Rachel Getting Married [Blu-ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV

Posted by admin | on 2 April, 03:46 AM

Amazon.com
Pitched between Robert Altman’s A Wedding and Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding–but more cautiously optimistic than both–Rachel Getting Married marks a change in course for director Jonathan Demme. Granted, few Oscar winners have walked a more diverse path. After a series of documentaries and remakes, the Silence of the Lambs helmer tries his hand at the intimate chamber drama. With the help of actress Anne Hathaway and screenwriter Jenny Lumet, daughter of filmmaker Sidney, he pulls it off. The festivities kick into high gear once Kym (Hathaway, with smeared eyeliner and unkempt hair) takes a break from rehab for her sister’s big day. It soon transpires that Kym, who hides her wounded soul behind a veil of sarcasm, serves as the Buchman’s resident black sheep. The problem goes deeper than drugs to a tragedy in which she played a part. As Kym, bride Rachel (Mad Men’s Rosemary DeWitt), their parents (Bill Irwin and Debra Winger), groom Sidney (TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe), and the rest of the bohemian Connecticut brood struggle with the past, the nuptials continue, graced by performances from past Demme collaborators like Sister Carol East (Something Wild) and Robyn Hitchcock (Storefront Hitchcock). The hours between reception and after-party contain humor, affection, and painful revelations. In the press notes, Demme claims that he and cinematographer Declan Quinn (In America) attempted to make a film that looked like “The most beautiful home movie ever made.” Using handheld cameras and believably flawed characters, they’ve done just that. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Rachel Getting Married (Click for larger image)

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 20093311122390677801

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 20093311122395377802

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 2009331112243177804

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 2009331112247877805

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 20093311122415677807

Rachel Getting Married [Blu ray]: Anne Hathaway: Movies & TV 20093311122420377808

Product Description
When Kym (Anne Hathaway - Golden Globe Nominee, Best Actress, Motion Picture (Drama)), returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), she brings a long history of personal crises, family conflict and tragedy along with her. The wedding couple’s abundant party of friends and relations have gathered for a joyful weekend of feasting, music and love, but Kym - with her biting one-liners and flair for bombshell drama - is a catalyst for long-simmering tensions in the family dynamic. Filled with the rich and eclectic characters that remain a hallmark of Jonathan Demme’s films, Rachel Getting Married paints a heartfelt, perceptive and sometimes hilarious family portrait.

Hathaway Excels in a Fierce Drama About Coming Home and Facing Demons,

By Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) -
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Rachel Getting Married (DVD)

Sitting through a movie about sibling rivalry at a wedding, especially one starring the doe-eyed and normally facile Anne Hathaway, sounds like a potentially painful way to spend an evening. However, as directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Jenny Lumet (daughter of master filmmaker Sidney Lumet), this 2008 drama is not a lightweight star vehicle à la Julia Roberts circa 1997 but a darkly realistic look at the dysfunction within a family thrown into disarray. Using an almost cinéma vérité style, Demme explores how a wedding reopens old wounds within a family in a naturalistic way made all the more palpable by the emotional acuity in Lumet’s screenplay.

The focus is on Kym, a chain-smoking former model who has spent the last several months in rehab. As a substance abuser whose only armor is cutting sarcasm, she 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 (the movie’s working title was “Dancing with Shiva”). 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 full recovered from past resentments. Their remarried father Paul is a bundle of loving support to the point of unctuous for both his girls, while their absentee mother Abby is the exact opposite - guarded and emotionally isolated until she is forced to face both her accountability and anger in one shocking moment.

Anne Hathaway is nothing short of a revelation as Kym. Instead of playing the role against the grain of her screen persona, she really shows what would happen if one of her previous characters - say, Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada - went another route entirely. The actress’ studiousness and persistence are still very much in evidence, but the story allows her to use these traits under the guise of a self-destructive, often unlikable addict who gains attention through her outrageous self-absorption. As the put-upon title character, Rosemarie DeWitt realistically shows Rachel’s sense of pain and resentment as the attention veers to Kym during plans for the most important day of her life. Bill Irwin is winning as the unapologetically grateful Paul, but it’s really Debra Winger who steals her all-too-brief scenes by bringing the remote character of Abby to life. Now in her early fifties, the famously tempestuous actress seems to rein in her innate fieriness to play a woman who consciously disconnects herself from the family she raised. What remains is a crumbling façade of propriety masking this obvious gap. It’s similar to Mary Tyler Moore’s turn as the cold mother in Ordinary People, but casting the normally vibrant Winger (who probably would have played Kym a quarter century ago) is a masterstroke.

The film is not perfect. Demme’s home-video approach, while novel at first, proves wearing over the 114-minute running time. Pacing is also a problem, especially when the focus turns to the minutiae of the wedding ceremony and reception. I wish Demme could have cut this part of the film, so we could get to the icy, unfinished resolution sooner. As a filmmaker who obviously enjoys making music concert films (Stop Making Sense, Neil Young - Heart of Gold), there are quite a few musical performances presented in total. However, for non-aficionados, it may prove too much over time. While it’s refreshing to see interracial marriages treated so casually (Lumet’s grandmother is legend Lena Horne), Demme makes almost too big a point in presenting a global community though the diverse music and the wedding’s multi-cultural themes. The movie starts to feel like a Putumayo collection of third-world performances. Still, Demme’s intentions can’t be faulted, and neither can the piercing work of Hathaway and Winger.

Can You Go Home Again?,

By Laurel-Rain Snow - Raine- “Author of ‘Miles t… (Fresno, California) -

This review is from: Rachel Getting Married (DVD)

Still dealing with her emotional angst, Kym (Anne Hathaway) is sprung from rehab for the weekend, to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt).

When she appears at the pre-nuptial events, Kym faces a host of demons - the least of which are memories of past drama and disappointments. As she wends her way through the emotional debris and faces the anger, hostility and sheer resentments of family members and friends, Kym discovers that forgiveness does not come easily.

Her reunion with her distant mother Abby (Debra Winger) reveals a layer of dysfunction only previously hinted at - and facing up to a long-ago tragedy suggests that forgiving oneself may be the biggest task of all.

Throughout the movie, we are privy to many layers of family connections, friendship bonds, and the power of love.

Anne Hathaway’s performance was stupendous - revealing a hidden depth only hinted at in previous films. Rachel Getting Married is a movie that I will watch over and over - that is how deeply moved I was by this film.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

An unsettlingly real portrait of a family dealing with loss and addiction at a time of celebration,

By Nathan Andersen “film lover, philosophy profe… (Florida) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Rachel Getting Married (DVD)

Several reviewers describe this film as painful to watch - and the subject matter is painful, but I found it fascinating, both because of the high level of the performances and because of the exceptionally strong camera work. I was also very impressed by the fact that the interracial marriage that gives the film its title was never made into an issue — while there is definitely still room for films that address the various forms of prejudice (racial and otherwise) that continue to have strong roots in our societies and world, it is refreshing to live in a time where not every film that represents racial and cultural differences needs to be about prejudice. We’ve made some progress since Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner …

One might mistake the camera work for the low-budget, amateur home movie style that film students employ to give their productions a feel of authenticity. But that is only if you aren’t paying attention to the way that the camera inevitably captures just the right angle to get just the reactions necessary to tell the story in a seemingly effortless way, or if you aren’t paying attention to how seamlessly the various shots are edited together, creating a very strong feeling of continuity and flow that is both natural and spontaneous. There is a great deal of art to the seeming artlessness of this film work - in that sense the film resembles some of the best of the “Dogme 95″ films (such as The Celebration or Open Hearts), that insisted on natural lighting and handheld camera work (among other things) in order to keep the focus on the performances. While I would hate it if every film were made this way, some subjects - such as the intimate family drama, such as this one — are perfectly suited for such an approach. (Massive monsters eating NYC - as in Cloverfield - are less appropriate subjects for this treatment, and in that film it feels much more like a gimmick to add the appearance of authenticity to a patently false premise - and thereby save money on the special effects that would be required to do it in the usual way.)

Jonathan Demme adds an element to the film that may be considered a reflection upon the “home movie” style - the film is captured in the style of an outside observer who nevertheless is given complete access to the most intimate aspects of the lives of the family members. There is a member of the groom’s family (perhaps his brother) who has just returned from military service in Iraq, and carries a video camera with him to capture the event, and who may serve as a kind of surrogate for the actual videographer. It is telling that Rachel’s father, after praising the young man’s service and hoping he will no longer be called into danger, encourages him to put down the camera: to let go of the status of a mere observer and take part in the festivities. This is, of course, a family of artists, musicians, and academics - and the soldier may feel out of place, but is encouraged not to. At some level, the film offers an ideal image of America - where cultural differences and racial differences can be taken for granted, not as differences that divide but as what makes our coming together that much more interesting. The documentary style helped make this ideal not seem so much like a Hollywood fantasy but a palpable reality. It is made easier to believe by the fact that economic differences do not figure in this film - everyone seems well enough off - but that omission should not be taken as a failing of the film as a glaring revelation (multicultural embrace tends still not to be possible except where economic status is comparable).

Another nice touch was the inclusion of Robyn Hitchcock as a wedding singer (director Jonathan Demme also directed a documentary called Storefront Hitchcock) and the inclusion of the Neal Young song “Unknown Legend” as a serenade from the title character’s fiance (Demme also directed the excellent doc Heart of Gold about Young). The only thing missing was a rendition of Talking Head’s “Once in a Lifetime” to recall his most famous documentary Stop Making Sense. Oh well, you can’t have everything … and I think it would have been hard to fit that in without detracting from the overall tone of the film.

For a number of reasons, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and hope that Demme continues to make films along these lines for a long time (as much as I liked The Silence of the Lambs, I’d like to see more that have the raw and intimate feel of this one, since few major players in Hollywood have the talent to pull something like this off in a convincingly authentic way.)
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