Rachel Getting Married

I can remember from all of my acting classes in college my professors saying that an audience brings what ever happened to them that day into the theater. We were to believe that if a person had a real crappy day that maybe they would not enjoy the show, or whatever. I have never lived by that theory myself. As an audience member of movies or plays, whatever happened to me before the show goes out of the window. I have always only been able to get behind the theory if someone just lost a loved one and they think going to a funny movie can cheer them up. It is most likely not going to help. That being said, I saw Rachel Getting Married on Wed. November 5th 2008, which was the day Proposition 8 passed and right before I saw this, I had a very long and passionate discussion with someone about the subject of Prop 8. This movie is about marriage, so it is possible my opinion of the movie will have something to do with my cultural surroundings.

Kym(Anne Hathaway) has recently been released from Rehab to attend the wedding of her sister. Kym is in her late 20s and has been addicted to drugs of some sort for most of her life. In her interactions with people we know she has been on Cops, had an incident in a pet store and is generally thought of as a screw up. She is a brutally honest train wreck of a human being who chain smokes, grasping to that last addiction. She lies in rehab and does not seem terribly interested in actually rehabbing. Her sister, Rachel(Rosemarie Dewitt) and her father, Paul(Bill Irwin) are both excited and nervous to see her, and with good reason. This is a dysfunctional family of the highest degree. The movie takes place the day before and the day of the wedding and in all of the complexities of family and loved ones.

I believe I can say that Rachel Getting Married is my favorite movie of 2008 thus far. I came out of it thinking I had just witnessed a masterpiece of cinema. The performances all the way around are incredible, especially Hathaway and Irwin. Jonathon Demme has an amazing directorial vision. Yes, it is shot with that kind of shaky camera documentary style, but it works because the movie suffocates you in these lives. You are fully engulfed in the dark family tragedy that is boiling under the surface for the first half of the movie and then erupts like a volcano in consecutive scenes that ignites the screen and ignites these characters lives. There is no distance between us and the characters on the screen, which works for the movie in various ways. First off, we feel each stinging tragedy, but at the same time, we live every glorious moment of the actual wedding as well. We see the pure magic that weddings are and this wedding is among the most beautifully honest I have seen on screen. It moved me in a way movie weddings rarely do. It is a wedding that crosses cultures and traditions and mixes them with beautiful music, an abundance of love and people of all colors, shapes and sizes, and probably sexual orientation.

At the core, Anne Hathaway rips her way through it. With a hair cut that looks like it was cut with a razor and bags under her eyes, Hathaway shreds away her Disney princess sheen and delves deeply into a character who at one point states that she cannot believe in God because she does not think she deserves to believe in a God. Hathaway lives inside the broken Kym, a girl who needs the constant attention while saying she hates the constant attention. Her performance is raw, gutty and emotionally exhausting and we are witness to it all. We are right next to her during each tearful confession and during each fight with her sister who is just fed up by Kym's life and actions. They have a bizarre relationship in the most stark of movie revelations, they go at each other with such force and velocity it is hard to see how a make up will ever happen. On the edges of insanity, lives their father, played to perfection by Bill Irwin. There are some amazing supporting performances already this year, but this guy needs accolades and nominations so people will watch him in this. What a truly spectacular, engaging, heart felt, sad and winning performance. Here is a father trying his best to keep a positive outlook, while his two daughters are hell bent on destroying each other. He is a man always on edge of breaking down, but always finding a way to keep it together. Only in a few brief seconds do we see the man behind the act and wow, what sadness lives in this man's eyes.

Rachel Getting Married has interesting visuals, a great ethnically diverse cast, beautiful music throughout and tremendous performances. It is a movie I have been thinking about almost nonstop since I saw it. It is such a small slice of life, but it is an incredibly powerful story of how family works and how love can help people change and how stressful moments can act as catharsis in moments of brutal honesty. It has long scenes and long camera shots, but it is never boring. There is a scene that is based around how to fill a dish washer that turns into a fast paced, funny, engaging and ultimately sad moment that sums up everything about how I feel about this movie.

Yes, maybe I was tearing up thinking of all my gay brothers and sisters who cannot experience how magical a legal wedding can be, but it was more than that. Rachel Getting Married made me believe in the power of music and singing when just telling someone something is not enough. I came away from the movie full of hope in my heart for a better tomorrow. It made me appreciate the family I have and the loved ones that surround me. Rachel Getting Married is the kind of movie that reminds me why I love movies so much and how something like a movie can be more than just entertainment.

Final Grade: A+