...or is that recovering from life. Every now that then you see a movie and it feels so incredibly honest and real that you have to blink afterwards and remind yourself that it was fiction. That is how I felt at the end of Rachel Getting Married. This is a movie that just oozes life. It is messy. It is uncomfortable at times. And just as quickly it is filled with love and hope. None of it is perfect, far from it, but all of it is real. There are no heroes or heroines, no villains - because everyone in the film has heroic and villainous qualities. Everyone is vulnerable and self-protective. In one scene I became so uncomfortable I had to leave the room because it felt so real and brought back so many memories of incredibly uncomfortable scenes in my own growing up years. But, even as I walked out of the room, I listened in the hallway because I couldn't leave and then I was overjoyed that it didn't go where I thought it was going. I can't remember the last time I lived so deeply inside of a movie as I did watching this film.
Rachel Getting Married takes place on the weekend of a wedding. As we all know weddings are filled with complications as we get family members together and blend new families. But the Buckman family has a whole host of issues that are just waiting to be unearthed. The most notable one is that Kym (Anne Hathaway) is just coming home from rehab on the weekend of the wedding. Initially we think the movie is going to be about her and her issues, but it soon becomes obvious that it is about a whole family. Her older sister, Rachel (Rosmarie DeWitt) has unresolved feelings about Kym and about her father (Paul, played by Bill Irwin) and her mother (Abby, played by Debra Winger). There is the spectre of a family tragedy that clearly hasn't been resolved in anyone's life. While all of this is unraveling, a beautiful wedding is transpiring - and it really is beautiful. It isn't just a set piece, a reason for the movie to take place. There are two wonderful lives being joined (Rachel and Sydney, who is played by the lead singer of the band TV on the Radio - who is so natural in the role that I am fascinated to see how good his music must be if he is this good at something he does in his spare time) in a most fascinating process that makes up the rehearsal and the wedding. There are cultures coming together and varying belief systems that all blend in an intriguing and wonderful way. I dare say I might have enjoyed this wedding even without all the turmoil and dysfunction.
I don't want to say too much about the rest of the story, because it really needs to be experienced. I do want to speak about the cast, it is one of the most diverse and believeable casts I have ever seen. Anne Hathaway is one of the finest young actresses to come along in a long time. I have to admit that I fell in love with her in The Princess Diaries, and have enjoyed her in every role in which I have seen her since. Kym is the most complicated and profound role she has played to date. It brought her a well deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and a host of other nominations and awards for her incredible acting. I was riveted by her everytime she is on the screen, which is virtually the entire movie. I was enthralled with her scenes at two different 12-Step meetings, especially when she is just listening and reacting to other people. She is so genuine and real in these scenes that I didn't want to blink for fear of missing something. I am probably exercising some hyperbole here, but I truly loved these scenes. When Kym shares her story you can tell that she has told this story before, but she is so present in the telling of it. It is so emotionally honest and bare. I also love that none of the other people in the room try to make it all better - they know that they can't and they know that they shouldn't becasue she needs to tell her story. They feel for her and with her - but they let her walk her journey and tell her story. Roger Ebert said, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, Rachel Getting Married is like the theme music for an evolving new age." I completely agree with him and can think of nowhere that this is more true than in the 12-Step meetings.
Hathaway's performance is matched by the deeply understated performance of Debra Winger who so embodies Abby as a woman who seems to me to have boxed away her emotions to where she can display very little range of emotion. She is very composed most of the time, but when there is danger of the emotion getting away from her she exits. When she can't exit she explodes. It is a very nuanced performance that is completely right in every way. These two actresses grab the spotlight, but they stand out in a movie that seems to have no weak link. Bill Irwin is fabulous as the Dad who always has to smooth things over and make things right even when it just can't be done. The kitchen scene where he and Sydney have a competition over who can best load a dishwasher is simply incredible. It teters on the edge of relational disaster and when it finally goes over the edge it comes from a completely unexpected direction.
Rosemary DeWitt is a relative newcomer to such a major role and she strikes the perfect chord in the tile role. She is the older sister trying to find the right way to love her addict sister but also exact a bit of revenge for the pain and disruption that she has brought to her life and their family. The film also features Anisa George's film debut in the role as Rachel's best friend and Kym's verbal sparring partner, Emma. She show's great promise and holds her own in several scenes with Hathaway and DeWitt. Mather Zickel, Sydney's best man is also a relative newcomer and seems to have a promising future in film.
No review of this film would be complete without discussing the style in which director Jonathan Demme chose to film this excellent script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet). Demme says that he had decided he wasn't interested in doing "fiction" films and had focused his career on documentaries. He read the script because his good friend Sidney Lumet had asked him to consider it. He became very intrigued, especially when he began considering filming it in a style very similar to a documentary. Ultimately, Demme crafted an approach to the film that was a hybrid between a stage play and a documentary. The virtually put on a wedding and filmed it as it happened. Decian Quinn, who does the cinematography for Demme's documentaries, filmed it with handheld cameras that moved throughout the scenes. It was filmed primarily at and around an actual house. Scenes were filmed in extended takes, not individual shots. For example the rehearsal dinner was done in two 35 minute takes. A critical scene back at the house after the rehearsal dinner was filmed in several 9-10 minute takes following the family from one room to another as they return to the house and have an extended argument. Even the 12-Step meetings were taken out of two meetings that were done in their entirety with actors simply doing what felt natural, and each was done in one take, including Hathaway's scene that I mentioned earlier.
The entire musical soundtrack happened live during the filming with musicians who made up the wedding players, who are all Sydney's friends and family (Sydney is a professional musician in the film). The music is unique and becomes like another character in the movie.
Rachel Getting Married (I much prefer this title to the original - Shiva, the Destroyer - you'll understand it if you see the movie), is a moving film that left me feeling hopeful. I cared about these characters and wanted to know what would happen to them in the year's ahead. It is not always an easy film to watch because of its blunt honesty. But that is also what makes it so very good. It is also a movie that I want to watch again because I have the sense that there is a lot I missed the first time around.
(Rachel Getting Married is currently available on DVD.)
