Illustration titled "Faded Blonde" by John Held Jr. published in LIFE magazine, c. 1928
I've been of two minds about writing about movies on this blog - I like writing about movies, but I don't think I do it very well. Also, I hardly ever go out to the movies anymore. Does it make any sense to just write about whatever random DVD shows up at my house from Netflix? Probably not, but guess what? I just watched Rachel Getting Married, and I'd like to air some of my grievances about it. Here's one: why am I watching a Jonathan Demme movie? Is this 1993?
Actually, I liked Rachel Getting Married quite a lot. Maybe I'm notoriously easy to please. Maybe I should call this feature "Movie Reviews for the Notoriously Easily Pleased." I liked Rachel Getting Married well enough that I'd say it's definitely in my top 3 list of Movies About Druggies Who Get Out of Rehab to Go To Their Sister's Wedding. Anne Hathaway is the druggie, of course, an ex-model named Kym who decides to use the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) to reconnect with her sister, mother, father, and stepmother. The movie is a talk-fest of full of Talkie McTalkingtons, but a few key things make it very interesting. For one, the script does a great job of walking you through the different parts of Kym's psyche - you start out sympathizing with her and defending her (because she's Anne Hathaway!), but her family's history unfolds slowly, revealing Kym to be a different kind of character entirely. Maybe not entirely unsympathetic, but very different from what you might think at first.
Hathaway's performance adds to this effectiveness of this twisting, as she slowly reveals the different issues that Kym has been working through in rehab. At first, Kym butts heads with Emma (Rachel's best friend), and Emma is bitchy enough right out of the gates that you naturally jump to Kym's defense. Emma's character is never really fleshed out (some people are just bitches), but she gradually fades into the woodwork, leaving Kym exposed to the viewer's greater scrutiny. By the time you get to Rachel Getting Married's ambiguous ending, you can end up feeling twisted up and torn by conflicting feelings about Kym, creating a pretty good simulacrum of Rachel's feelings toward her sister.
I also want to say that I think Rosemarie DeWitt is great in this movie, possibly better than Hathaway. I've liked DeWitt in other things (that's right, the "notoriously easy to please" guy watched every episode of "Standoff"), and she is excellent here. Her groom, played by Tunde Adebimpe, on the other hand, is an empty tuxedo, a rock musician cast to play part of the window-dressing. And that window-dressing is actually one of my favorite things about Rachel Getting Married - instead of being a typical upper-class wedding, the backdrop for the movie is a gathering of musicians. I guess Rachel's dad was in the music industry, and the groom's friends are all musicians, so the wedding attendees all arrive toting instruments, and every scene has a rehearsal of some kind going on in the background. The wedding itself is a concert as much as anything else, featuring live performances by Robyn Hitchcock, Sister Carol East, and others. The music and the laid-back bohemian vibe they create provides an interesting contrast to the high emotions of the main characters and makes the tension more bearable at times (and more unbearable at others).
Hathaway and DeWitt do most of the heavy lifting in the movie, but Debra Winger and Bill Irwin also have great moments the parents of Rachel and Kym. A little research has informed me that Bill Irwin was one of the dudes in the "Don't Worry Be Happy" video - how about that? Anyway, Rachel Getting Married has a great cast acting out a terrible family crisis against the backdrop of a lovely musical home and outrageously fun wedding. Depending on where your focus falls, you may find the movie soothing or heart-wrenching, but it's definitely a movie that succeeds in what it sets out to do.
If I had Robyn Hitchcock play my wedding, I'd have him play "Executioner", from his 1990 album Eye. It's lyrics could be about Kym and her family, in a way - "I'm the executioner of love / Our love has been found guilty / Our love is turning bad / Before I pass the sentence / Have you anything to add?"
"Executioner" by Robyn Hitchcock
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