 "Photo: Anne Hathaway (left) stars as Kym, an emotionally volatile ex-model who attempts to come to terms wi")
After a short foray into documentary filmmaking, director Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia”) returns to feature film with “Rachel Getting Married,” starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie Dewitt and Tunde Adebimpe.
Black-sheep ex-model Kym (Hathaway) checks out of rehab to visit her family and attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Dewitt) and husband-to-be Sidney (Adebimpe).
Unfortunately, Kym’s attention-seeking nature proves near-disastrous. As the family tries to prepare for the joyous occasion of Rachel’s wedding, the emotionally volatile Kym exposes the darker side of herself and her family in an attempt to come to terms with her own role in a long-past family tragedy.
Best known for her roles in female-friendly comedies, “The Princess Diaries” and “The Devil Wears Prada,” Hathaway redefines herself as an actress and displays very serious dramatic ability in “Rachel Getting Married.” In the hands of a lesser actress, Kym could become a very unlikable character.
But Hathaway makes the audience feel Kym’s hurricane of emotions, and the pain and uncertainty that accompany her dramatic outbursts. Rather than creating a simple “good” or “bad” character, Hathaway brings us to love and identify with Kym because of the character’s faults and her genuine, if sometimes misguided, attempts to overcome them.
The excellent supporting cast also helps to flesh out the script’s fine sense of family. Dewitt’s portrayal of alternating affection and total frustration with her agitating sister is wonderfully played.
Debra Winger turns in a small but great performance as Kym’s callously uninvolved birth mother. Numerous other supporting performers are similarly top-notch, and the cast comes together to create the impression of a true, functional (or perhaps dysfunctional) family.
Jenny Lumet’s script similarly refuses to cling to simple archetype, and it strongly mirrors real life in its complexity. Lumet creates a cast of characters that truly seem like a family, joking, arguing, and interacting in that strange but loving way a group of blood relatives do when thrust into the same room together.
Although the ending of the film seems to lack traditional dramatic resolution, it fits with the naturalism of Lumet’s script. Certain characters in the film prove unable to change; others have hopefully changed for the better.
But, of course, the key element here is the incomparable Demme’s masterful direction. Moving through the events of the film with the jerkiness of a handheld camera, Demme brilliantly combines all of the above elements to create the sense of spontaneous naturalism that defines “Rachel Getting Married.”
The master of humanist drama gives us another film that celebrates the human spirit, while recognizing its flaws. Although Demme’s documentary filmmaking is enjoyable, hopefully he will not wait another four years before directing his next feature.
Grade: A-
Be the first to comment on this article!