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Rachel Getting Married

 
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Rachel Getting Married

  • Director: Jonathan Demme
  • AMG Rating: starstarstar
  • Genre: Drama
  • Movie Type: Family Drama, Ensemble Film
  • Themes: Wedding Bells, Sibling Relationships, Bohemian Life
  • Main Cast: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Debra Winger
  • Release Year: 2008
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 111 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: R

Plot

Lingering tensions clash with new hopes in director Jonathan Demme's ensemble drama set during an idyllic wedding that threatens to descend into chaos with the appearance of the bride's estranged sister -- a volatile and unpredictable girl whose turbulent history of personal crisis and family conflict quickly threatens to take precedence over the happy ceremony. Rachel Buchman (Rosemarie DeWitt) is about to be married to the love of her life, but while the weather outside may be perfect, there's a storm blowing in. That storm goes by the name Kym (Anne Hathaway). Kym is the family black sheep, and wherever she goes disaster is sure to follow. Now, as friends and family gather together for a memorable day of dining, dancing, and celebration, everyone braces themselves knowing that, at any given moment, old skeletons may be dragged out and dusted off for display by the bombshell who seems to have an acerbic one-liner for every situation, and a flare for drama that could set their family home ablaze. Bill Irwin and Debra Winger co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Review

Rachel Getting Married reminds audiences what Jonathan Demme does best, but also suffers from the same faults that have mucked up his recent work. The film opens with Kym's (Anne Hathaway) father (Bill Irwin) and stepmother picking her up from rehab so that Kym can go home for her sister Rachel's (Rosemarie DeWitt) nuptials. The family house overflows with musicians, artists, and friends who are busy preparing for the big event; someone in the house is playing music almost all of the time. Within minutes of her arrival, the dysfunctional relationships within the family fall into a familiar rut with Rachel yelling at Kym for her selfishness, Kym demanding sympathy from everyone, and their ineffectual dad trying to keep the peace.

Hathaway and DeWitt are superb together. There is no doubt of their genuine love for -- and absolute exasperation with -- each other. Your sympathies shift between the two during the opening scenes, and this is one of Demme's great strengths -- he never judges Kym for her addictions, and never questions Rachel's frustration and anger. The actresses each deliver finely detailed performances, particularly in the scenes where their recriminations fall away to reveal the genuine affection flowing underneath all the resentments.

Had Demme focused on this human drama he might have created a minor-key masterpiece, but instead he indulges in sequences featuring all the other people who are part of the wedding. Understand, these scenes don't actually introduce us to all these people -- we don't get to know them at all -- they are just simple moments that don't add up to anything. For example, a series of toasts during the rehearsal dinner starts charmingly before devolving into speech after speech from characters you've barely seen before and might not see again; eventually, you feel as bored as you would be at a social function where you don't know a single person. Demme's humanism used to be effortless, but here it leads to deadening collections of scenes that serve no dramatic purpose. Demme wants us to observe the diversity, but he makes us look at it for so long that you start to question why he's making us stare at it instead of trusting us to accept that this is how this world is. He presents cultural diversity with a dispassion that's meant to illustrate how ordinary this idealized picture of togetherness should be, but observing a microcosm of a social utopia isn't as interesting as being part of one. By failing to return regularly to his engaging main story, Demme neuters the power of his own subtext.

From his early days with Roger Corman, Demme possessed both a gargantuan humanism and a light touch. Few filmmakers could put characters as odd as those that populate Melvin and Howard, Citizens Band, and Something Wild onscreen without an ounce of judgment or condescension. In Hannibal Lecter, Demme finally found a character that matched his own ability to observe human behavior. This sympathetic connection helped make The Silence of the Lambs a classic, but it seems to have exhausted Demme creatively. In Philadelphia and Beloved, he ceased looking at people for the sheer joy of understanding them, and began to look at them out of some sense that his audience would become better people for having done so. That kind of moral ambition rarely leads to quality filmmaking. Rachel Getting Married does offer a glimpse of the simple humanitarianism Demme used to handle with aplomb, but once again, it's compromised by mild self-righteousness. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Cast

Mather Zickel - Kieran; Anna Deavere Smith - Carol; Anisa George - Emma; Jerome LePage - Andrew; Victoria Haynes - Bridesmaid; Beau Sia - Wedding Czar; Sister Carol East - Wedding Band Performer; Robyn Hitchcock - Wedding Band Performer; Darrell Larson - 12-Step Group Leader; Carol Jean Lewis - Sidney's Mom; Roger Corman - Party Guest with Movie Camera; Fab Five Freddy - Wedding Performer; Sebastian Stan - Walter, bowtie party guest; Michele Federer - 12-Step Reader; Zafer Tawil - Violin Friend; Tamyra Gray - Singing Friend; Elizabeth Hayes - Susanna Galeano; Innbo Shim - Wedding Planner; Roslyn Ruff - Rosa; Annaleigh Ashford - Quick Stop Cashier; Quincy Tyler Bernstine - 12-Step Receptionist; Matthew Stadelmann - 12-Step First-Timer; Pastor Melvin Jones - 12-Step Speaker; Kyrah Julian - Sidney's Sister

Credit

Kim Jennings - Art Director, Elizabeth Hayes - Associate Producer, Innbo Shim - Associate Producer, Emily Woodburne - Associate Producer, Bernie Telsey - Casting, H.H. Cooper - Co-producer, Susan Lyall - Costume Designer, H.H. Cooper - First Assistant Director, Jonathan Demme - Director, Tim Squyres - Editor, Ilona Herzberg - Executive Producer, Carol Cuddy - Executive Producer, Zafer Tawil - Composer (Music Score), Donald Harrison Jr. - Composer (Music Score), Innbo Shim - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ford Wheeler - Production Designer, Declan Quinn - Cinematographer, Jonathan Demme - Producer, Marc E. Platt - Producer, Neda Armian - Producer, Jenny Lumet - Screenwriter, Suzana Peric - Music Editor, Kendall McCarthy - Post Production Supervisor, Jeff Pullman - Production Sound Mixer

Similar Movies

A Wedding; SherryBaby; Personal Velocity: Three Portraits; Lovers and Other Strangers; Margot at the Wedding; The Anniversary Party; Twice in a Lifetime
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Rachel Getting Married

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Produced by Jonathan Demme
Neda Armian
Marc E. Platt
Written by Jenny Lumet
Starring Anne Hathaway
Rosemarie DeWitt
Bill Irwin
Anna Deavere Smith
Tunde Adebimpe
Debra Winger
Music by Donald Harrison Jr.
Zafer Tawil
Cinematography Declan Quinn
Editing by Tim Squyres
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s) United States:
October 3, 2008 (limited)
Running time 114 min.
Country United States
Language English
Gross revenue $16,020,184[1]

Rachel Getting Married is a 2008 drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. The film was released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3, 2008. The film opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival. The film also opened in Canada's Toronto Film Festival on September 6, 2008.

Contents

Plot summary

Kym, a woman perhaps in her mid-twenties, is released from rehab for more than a few days so she can go home to attend her sister Rachel's wedding. At home, the atmosphere is strained between Kym and her family members, as they struggle to reconcile themselves with her past and her presence. Kym's father shows intense concern for her well-being and whereabouts, which Kym interprets as mistrust. She also resents her sister's choice of a friend, rather than Kym, to be her maid of honor. Rachel, for her part, resents the attention her sister's addiction is drawing away from her wedding, a resentment that comes to a head at the rehearsal dinner, where Kym, amid toasts from friends and family, takes the microphone to offer an apology for her past actions, as part of her twelve-step program.

Underlying the family's dynamic is a tragedy that occurred many years previously, which Kym retells at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. As a teenager, Kym was responsible for the death of her baby brother, who was left in her care one day despite her being high at the time. Driving home from a nearby park, Kym had lost control of the car, driving over a bridge and into a river, where her brother drowned.

The day before the wedding, as Rachel, Kym, and the other bride's maids are getting their hair done, Kym is approached by a man who she knew in an earlier stint in rehab. He thanks her for the strength she gave him through a story about her childhood sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle. Rachel, hearing this, storms out. The story, it turns out, was all a lie, an apparent attempt by Kym to evade responsibility for her addiction. The sisters' fight comes to a head later that night, leading Kym to escape to her mother's house. However, she finds no respite there, as a fight with her mother comes to blows. She runs off again, this time intentionally crashing her car into a tree, and sleeps the night in the car.

The next morning, the day of the wedding, Kym is awoken by police. After passing a sobriety test, she gets a ride home. She makes her way to Rachel's room, as Rachel prepares for the wedding. Seeing Kym's bruised face, the anger of the previous night vanishes, and Rachel tenderly bathes and dresses Kym.

Amid a festive Indian theme, Rachel and her fiancé are wed. Kym is the maid of honor, and is overcome with emotion as the couple exchange their vows. Kym tries to enjoy herself throughout the wedding reception, but continues to feel out of place and is nagged by the unresolved dispute with her mother. Ultimately, her mother leaves the party early, despite Rachel's effort to bring the two together, and the gulf between Kym and her mother is left unreconciled.

The next morning, Kym must return to rehab. As she is leaving, Rachel runs out of the house to hug her, their sisterly love remaining strong despite all that has passed between them.

Production

The screenplay was written by Jenny Lumet, the daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of Lena Horne. Lumet, a junior high school drama teacher, has written four earlier screenplays, but this was the first to be produced. The film is directed by Jonathan Demme, and was shot in Stamford, Connecticut in a naturalistic style. The working title for the film was originally Dancing with Shiva.

It was Sidney Lumet himself who approached Demme about his daughter Jenny's script. Demme has commented that he loved Jenny's flagrant disregard for the rules of formula, her lack of concern for making her characters likable in the conventional sense and for what he considered to be her bold approach to truth, pain, and humor.[2]

Filming took 33 days and occurred in late 2007.[3]

Cast

Actor/Actress Role Description
Anne Hathaway Kym Rachel's sister, who's been in and out of rehab
Rosemarie DeWitt Rachel Kym's sister, who's to be married
Bill Irwin Paul Kym and Rachel's father
Debra Winger Abby Kym and Rachel's estranged mother
Tunde Adebimpe Sidney Rachel's soon-to-be husband
Mather Zickel Kieran Kym's love interest, who has also been in rehab but is now clean; also the best man and Sidney's best friend
Anna Deavere Smith Carol Paul's wife
Anisa George Emma Rachel's best friend
Jerome LePage Andrew Abby's husband
Carol-Jean Lewis Sidney's Mother
Fab 5 Freddy Himself Cameo appearance

Casting

Demme had wanted to work with Anne Hathaway ever since he spotted her in a crowd at a screening five years earlier. He immediately took her in consideration for the role of Kym.[4] Hathaway later said of her first reading Lumet's script: "I was in my old apartment in the West Village [Manhattan], just pacing back and forth between the kitchen table and the couch. I somehow wound up on the floor sobbing by the last page."[3]

Rosemarie DeWitt was considered by the film's casting directors. Demme and the rest of the crew were impressed and immediately wanted her to play Rachel. Bill Irwin is one of Demme's dear friends and neighbor.

Tunde Adebimpe's role, Sidney, was originally offered to American film director Paul Thomas Anderson while he was working on the post-production of the movie There Will Be Blood.[5]

Demme was concerned about Debra Winger's interest in doing the film, but he pumped up his courage to ask her because they had met several times before at the Jacob Burns Center, a film center close to their homes. Winger later accepted the role of Abby.[6]

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a triumph of ambience," and that Hathaway, DeWitt, Irwin and especially Winger are working at a very high level.[7] Roger Ebert's four-star rating added, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, Rachel Getting Married is like the theme music for an evolving new age."[8] Other critics praised Jonathan Demme for USA Today "a career of cinematic good works" (Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer)[9] and "his best film since The Silence of the Lambs...as raw as Ingmar Bergman and as operatic as Mildred Pierce (Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly)[10].

Peter Travers noted that Rachel Getting Married is "a home run...[it goes] deep into the joy and pain of being human."[11]A.O. Scott of the New York Times said that the film has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit that feels welcome and rare.[12]

Many reviewers praised the film for its organic, unfussy feel; Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek noted that "with 'Rachel Getting Married,' Demme has once again scaled back, making a picture that has some of the ease and warmth of his earlier movies, although it also feels stripped down and direct in a way that's new for Demme." [13] USA Today proclaimed: "After a foray in documentary films, director Jonathan Demme has returned to narrative storytelling, assuming a decidedly cinéma vérité style that has echoes of Robert Altman. The film's greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism in portraying dinner parties and interpersonal encounters that can throw family members off-kilter." [14]. The Los Angeles Times noted: "Helping give this story its essential air of reality is the decision Demme and cinematographer Quinn made to shoot it as what they call "the most beautiful home movie ever made." The director chose not to plan shots in advance, instead giving Quinn (whose credits include Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding") the ability to respond in the moment to what was going on with the actors, and it's a tribute to his ability (and that of editor Tim Squyres) that his camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time." [15].

Anne Hathaway won raves for her work as Kym. USA Today called her "wonderful... [Kym's] nervous laughter, edginess and quick temper blend convincingly with her need for attention and vulnerability." [16] Newsweek commented: "Kym is a major pain in the ass, and Hathaway's raw, spiky performance makes no attempt to ingratiate. Yet she makes Kym's inner torment so palpable you can't help but feel for her, however insufferable she may be. It's a terrific performance..." [17]. Empire felt that "Kym is a peach of a role — she sleeps with the best man, fights with the maid of honour, quips, 'You’re so thin, it’s like you’re Asian' — and Hathaway squeezes it for all the juice it’s worth, making this raw-nerved, narcissistic Tasmanian Devil not just believable, but somehow likable." [18]


The film currently holds an overall 86% at Rotten Tomatoes[19] and a 94% from selected "top critics".[20]

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.[21]

Music

A diverse array of musicians, actually played by director Jonathan Demme's son Brooklyn and his friends, attend Rachel's wedding performing both before and after the ceremony. Various musical soundtrack themes are played "live" during the film.

Rachel's husband Sidney sings an a cappella cover of Neil Young's "Unknown Legend" (1992) during the nuptials. Tunde Adebimpe, who played Sidney, is the lead singer of the popular art-rock band TV on the Radio.

Awards and nominations

Awards
Award Category Name Results
Academy Awards Best Actress Anne Hathaway Nominated
Austin Film Critics Association[28] Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Best Cast Acting Ensemble Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Best Supporting Actor Bill Irwin Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Rosemarie DeWitt Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Jenny Lumet Nominated
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Detroit Film Critics Society Best Actress Anne Hathaway Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Rosemarie DeWitt Nominated
Best Ensemble Nominated
Best Newcomer Rosemarie DeWitt Nominated
EDA Annual Achievement Awards Best Ensemble Cast Won
Best Woman Screenwriter Jenny Lumet Won
Golden Globe Awards Best Actress - Drama Anne Hathaway Nominated
Gotham Awards Breakthrough Actor Rosemarie DeWitt Nominated
Best Ensemble Cast Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin
Tunde Adebimpe, Anna Deavere Smith
Anisa George, Debra Winger
Nominated
Houston Film Critics Society Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Independent Spirit Awards Best Film Nominated
Best Director Jonathan Demme Nominated
Best First Screenplay Jenny Lumet Nominated
Best Lead Female Anne Hathaway Nominated
Best Supporting Female Rosemarie DeWitt Nominated
Best Supporting Female Debra Winger Nominated
National Board of Review Awards Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Screenplay Jenny Lumet Won
Palm Springs International Film Festival Desert Palms Achievement Award for Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
Satellite Awards Best Supporting Actress Rosemarie DeWitt Won
Best Actress - Drama Anne Hathaway Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Anne Hathaway Nominated
Southeastern Film Critics Association Best Actress Anne Hathaway Won
St. Louis Film Critics Association[29] Best Actress Anne Hathaway Nominated
Utah Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress Rosemarie DeWitt Won
Best Screenplay Jenny Lumet Won
Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress Rosemarie DeWitt Won
Best Screenplay Jenny Lumet Won

External links

References


 
 

 

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Movies. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Movie Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rachel Getting Married" Read more