Review of Rachel Getting Married (2008) by Jeff B — 17 Aug 2010

Like most life lessons, there are the hydra-heads of pleasure and pain in watching some films?and not necessarily bad films. Your reviewer is thinking more of the spot-on pictures that get it so right that one actually reels with emotion at the perfectly played turmoil of the character suffering on-screen. More specifically, he is referring to Rachel Getting Married, a tour-de-force performance piece that does more than captivate filmgoers for nearly two hours?it imbeds itself in your mind?s eye and only lets go as the credits unexpectedly start rolling. But it might be the most satisfying therapy one could hope for in a movie theater.

In this R-rated drama, Hathaway plays a young woman just released from rehab who must confront her personal crises and family conflict on the weekend of her sister?s wedding.

Harrowing is the word to describe watching Hathaway?s darkly witty all-eyes-on-me drama queen try to get her head around the fact that the wedding guests are not there for her?they are there, of course, for her sister. But Jenny Lumet?s deeply affecting script holds so much more tragedy and comedy under the surface that the ?tell? cannot come soon enough. And that is the trump card of such a brave project. Director Jonathan Demme chooses a hand-held fly-on-the-wall approach to ace effect. The scenes play out in largely ad-libbed long takes. With no film makeup, the principals become real people in a wedding video that sweeps the audience up into a funeral dirge only to leave them fulfilled at film?s end.

Bottom line: Say ?I do.?