Rachel Getting Married (2008)
A highly naturalistic view of an upscale, hyper multi-culti wedding, mostly in the two days leading up to it, and with an intense family tragedy giving the three or four main characters their psychological edge. It's intense, believable, fascinating. It also sometimes gets stuck in its own realism by staying too long with one moment, as if the slight boredom and repetition is part of being there.
Director Demme goes for slightly off kilter movies, unsentimental, using straight ahead filming and honest acting (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), but here, maybe more than ever, he recreates normal reality with practiced artfulness. Of course, "practiced artfulness" is a clumsy phrase on purpose, not a great goal, and the result, the movie as a whole, is imperfect in its arch through the long weekend. Most of all, I think it depends on the subtle, often amazing emotional depths of the characters, for their own sake. The big reason for the interpersonal conflicts is convincing, for sure, but is just a tool for exploring the present, a decade after the tragedy. And so, oddly, the wedding itself doesn't matter, and it gets in the way, the wildly multi-cultural scene stealing the show from what we are meant to be immersed in.
Anne Hathaway is a favorite of mine, and she pulls off her self-obsessed, rehab-bound character with a perfect push-pull, not too over the top except now and then, as if to make her control clear. The rest follow in her path, with some stellar smaller parts, and some adequate ones. At its best, even without insight, it will totally grab you.
A highly naturalistic view of an upscale, hyper multi-culti wedding, mostly in the two days leading up to it, and with an intense family tragedy giving the three or four main characters their psychological edge. It's intense, believable, fascinating. It also sometimes gets stuck in its own realism by staying too long with one moment, as if the slight boredom and repetition is part of being there.
Director Demme goes for slightly off kilter movies, unsentimental, using straight ahead filming and honest acting (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), but here, maybe more than ever, he recreates normal reality with practiced artfulness. Of course, "practiced artfulness" is a clumsy phrase on purpose, not a great goal, and the result, the movie as a whole, is imperfect in its arch through the long weekend. Most of all, I think it depends on the subtle, often amazing emotional depths of the characters, for their own sake. The big reason for the interpersonal conflicts is convincing, for sure, but is just a tool for exploring the present, a decade after the tragedy. And so, oddly, the wedding itself doesn't matter, and it gets in the way, the wildly multi-cultural scene stealing the show from what we are meant to be immersed in.
Anne Hathaway is a favorite of mine, and she pulls off her self-obsessed, rehab-bound character with a perfect push-pull, not too over the top except now and then, as if to make her control clear. The rest follow in her path, with some stellar smaller parts, and some adequate ones. At its best, even without insight, it will totally grab you.