Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008)

[Jeff]

I know that the trailer was largely met with derision here when I posted it last month. I was a little worried myself. The thing has played Venice and Toronto though, and is receiving some of the best reviews of the year. Two things that intrigue me: across-the-board comparisons to Altman and claims of Demme being back in the mode of Something Wild (for me, his best film by a country mile). The film opens in limited release on October 3.

Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me.

Brimming with energy, elan and the unpredictability of his "Something Wild," Jonathan Demme's triumphant "Rachel Getting Married" may just lay the wedding film to rest, being such a hard act to follow...With the passing of Robert Altman, Demme remains the only one of his groundbreaking generation of '60s/'70s-spawned, open-ended moviemakers consistently making films. Though written by Jenny Lumet (Sidney's daughter) and owing more, plot-wise, to Noah Baumbach's "Margot at the Wedding" than to Altman's "A Wedding," "Rachel Getting Married" quite consciously inscribes itself with that Altmanesque tradition of go-with-the-flow, quasi-ethnographic American walkabouts.

Jonathan Demme, last in Venice with "The Manchurian Candidate," breathes a breath of honest cinema into a lackluster competition with "Rachel Getting Married"...Like Robert Altman's 1978 "A Wedding," by which it is clearly inspired, this is a terrific piece of Americana, shot with great spontaneity by cinematographer Declan Quinn. Demme's parallel career as a documentarist spills over into the onscreen music making, improv-style acting and fluid hand-held camera work.

Jonathan Demme pays homage to Robert Altman with the emotionally charged and darkly comic drama Rachel Getting Married, shown at the Venice Film Festival yesterday. A first-rate ensemble cast features the excellent Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel; Bill Irwin as her father; a superbly frosty Debra Winger as her mother; and sundry musical figures, including Fab Five Freddy, Robin Hitchcock and Sister Carol East.

(four out of five stars)

Hand-held, free-wheeling and at times joyously spontaneous, the dogme-like Rachel Getting Married sees Jonathan Demme paying tribute to Robert Altman (in particular A Wedding) but there's such a large dose of music in here it almost forms a genre of its own. Not quite, though. In its treatment of a Connecticut family with the dark hole of family loss and dysfunction at its centre, Rachel Getting Married travels familiar thematic ground from Ordinary People on up.

Packed with superb performances, in particular from Anne Hathaway in the lead role and Debra Winger in a small supporting turn she makes memorable, Rachel Getting Married will undoubtedly be up for awards consideration in the major categories.

Rachel Getting Married is the best Altman movie in 15 years.

Of course, this film is not by Robert Altman, but by Jonathan Demme, one of America’s great filmmakers, of a generation that came up behind the Altmans and others of the early 70s, who made his first high profile film, Melvin and Howard, one decade after Altman’s M*A*S*H*. Twenty-eight years later, Demme pays tribute to Altman with the style of real-life over-talking, silence, and open ends that he has never really emulated before combined with his personal aesthetic of music, wild but loving characters, and unexpected performances that change careers...By the end of the film, your expectations have been overwhelmed by the world that Demme and all of his collaborators (including Declan Quinn as DP and Ang Lee’s regular cutter, Tim Squyres on the Avid) have created. At the same time, what many people expect to get from a movie these days is not offered. Sorry. But any detractor – and there will surely be some – should take a breath and think about what they were offered here by Lumet, Demme, et al. When is the last time we saw this kind of intimacy in a movie released by a major or a division of a major? It’s what Altman was always reaching for, for better and sometimes worse. It is what Soderbergh beings to his more earnest efforts. It’s what we yearn for at film after film at these festivals… an intimate human truth.

A wedding is where the family is forced/chooses to come together, as adults, with histories, in an attempt to share a loving event. It is a classic dramatic construct. Rachel Getting Married is a classic deconstruction. It is a minor masterpiece. So far, it is the best American movie of the year. And even in this weak movie year, that is saying something.

Cinema is littered with stories of addiction and family dysfunction—movies like Sherrybaby and The Celebration were bandied about in comparison to this no-frills, kitchen-sink melodrama—but few are as warm, incisive, and emotionally devastating as this one.

Grade = A

The script for this at-times-painfully-real slice-of-life clunks a bit, with characters venting maybe too directly about the pain that recovering addict Hathaway has caused all of them, and the added angst she's bringing to her sister's happiest day. But so much about this movie is so goddamned beautiful that I was pretty much a wreck by the last half hour. Pauline Kael once described Nashville as "an Altman party," and Rachel Getting Married feels a lot like a Demme party, populated by a rich, multiethnic cast of musicians, actors and comedians. (Dig these names in the credits: Roger Corman, Robyn Hitchcock, Fab Five Freddy, Tamyra Gray, and so on.)

Grade = A-

Demme goes Dogme! Easily the most emotionally wrenching family melodrama since The Celebration, which it heavily resembles (except in that the Big Secret is unknown at first only to the audience); Anne Hathaway's heartbreakingly credible concerto of neediness and self-absorption is merely the most unexpected performance in a never-miss ensemble. I was not remotely prepared for this picture.

(best film so far this year)

[Grand Illusion]

I've been eager to see this since the trailer.

Plus... Anne Hathaway.

[Antoine Doinel]

I've been eager to see this since the trailer.

Plus... Anne Hathaway.

Seconded.

[margot]

It reminds me too much of margot at the wedding (which no one saw and the ones who did hated it) and I get the feeling a lot of people are going to see this.

[domino harvey]

It reminds me too much of margot at the wedding (which no one saw and the ones who did hated it) and I get the feeling a lot of people are going to see this.

I posted something to this effect and then erased it because I shouldn't be speculating so heavily about a film I haven't seen, BUT I do suspect this is a case of a simplistic Indiewood film getting praised while a similar, more complex and challenging film like Margot gets trashed

[Jeff]

I was so enamored with Margot at the Wedding that I saw it twice in theaters, but I'm eagerly anticipating this one too. I know that Scott Tobias and Mike D'Angelo, whom I've quoted above were Margot fans as well.

I think that Demme has a completely different vibe than Baumbach, and I'm looking forward to the musical aspects. With all of the Altman comparisons, I think it will be sufficiently different from Margot (though I note that Variety makes the comparison). As Domino says though, I shouldn't be speculating so heavily about a film I haven't seen.

[Cold Bishop]

The trailer looked absolutely bland, and I found Anne Hathaway annoying in it to the extent I don't know how I could handle a feature length performance, so I consider this response a pleasant surprise.

[souvenir]

I'm in line with most of what's already been said, but the real exciting idea is Demme getting his career back. He was one of the most promising directors working for a ten-year period between the mid-80s and mid-90s, but lately he's seemed completely unconcerned with filmmaking. I liked The Manchurian Candidate all right despite it being entirely unnecessary. To have him working again on something that's not a remake is encouraging.

Also of note, this film was apparently written by Sidney Lumet's daughter.

[tavernier]

Armond loves it.

I had forgotten how much he loves Demme (almost as much as Spielberg--he even raved about Beloved).

He of course compares it to several lesser films:

Avoiding the hip nihilism of repugnant family dramas like Margot at the Wedding and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Demme offers compassion.

Lots of worldly horror pollutes our cinema this year—4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, Paranoid Park, Funny Games, Wanted, The Dark Knight, Lakeview Terrace—without being true to life; but Rachel Getting Married defies all that by rehearsing heaven.

That may be the worst final line of a review, ever.

[Barmy]

I can't disagree with his list of shitey films, although Wanted was not intolerable.

[tavernier]

The problem is the sanctimonious, bleeding-heart Rachel belongs on that list too. Whatever happened to Demme???

[Barmy]

I've never been a fan. "Caged Heat" was his last good film. This "Rachel" thing looks tailor-made for the "Entertainment Weekly" subscriber base, looking to see their first art film since "Crash".

[Grand Illusion]

Anne Hathaway, like Ledger earlier this year, was a performance I didn't believe would live up to the hype but did. Rachel Getting Married is a character piece through and through, so that said, all the performances were excellent. Hathaway's Kym is a fully fleshed out human being, and the well-written Jenny Lumet script doles information out at perfect increments. Supporting players Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin, as Rachel and her father, are also fascinating to watch on screen, discovering their idiosyncrasies and secrets.

Despite being focused on character, Demme shows himself to have a deft directorial hand. When Hathaway returns home and enters a room, the outside light is blown out white, and Demme racks the f-stop causing the exposure to shift to the window. It's how our eyes naturally adjust and also mirrors Hathaway readjusting to her home.

Another strong point is later in the film how Demme films Hathaway driving home after a pivotal confrontation. His use of focus and lights are jarring and work a slick correlative between the form and function, the visual and psychological.

Demme weaves this naturally into the foundation of the cinema verite style he's chosen for the film. On the positive side, we get closer to these characters than we might truly feel comfortable. Negative, the camera work looks like every other shaky indie film.

Positive, we actually feel like we're at the wedding. Negative, like at an actual wedding, we get trapped in a few conversations that we'd rather not. A few toasts and a few celebratory sequences last a little too long. The time spent with the characters is golden, and these verite moments are obviously meant to break up those scenes and suspend the resolution. Demme's hand at suspense isn't Hitchcock though, and a few of these drag. Most egregiously, three dancing celebrations take place one after the other. The film could probably cut 5-7 minutes.

That said, it's an excellent film. Although the strong and award-worthy performance by Hathaway will dominate conversation, Demme is skillful enough (and I consider his oeuvre hit-and-miss) to make several aspects of this film worthy of discussion. The foundation is built on a truthful script by Jenny Lumet, which makes her another breakout hit of the film.

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's the soundtrack listing, which includes Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio covering Neil Young and an exclusive track by Robyn Hitchcock.

[montgomery]

While the film clearly owes a debt to A Wedding specifically, I find it really odd that pretty much every single review quoted above calls the film Altman-esque, or an "homage" to Robert Altman. Was this connection made on the press release, or by Demme himself? There are definitely explicit plot (and location) parallels, but aesthetically it's not like an Altman film at all, and it resembles several other, non-Altman films as much as it does A Wedding (a relatively lesser-known Altman film that I wouldn't trust every pop-magazine film reviewer to have seen). Parallels between, say, Magnolia and Short Cuts are glaringly obvious; when "Woody does Bergman," it's plain. But the connection here seems just a little too tenuous for every single reviewer to be basing their reviews on it; calling it "The best Altman movie in 15 years" is really off-the-mark, regardless of the quality of the film itself.

[spoilers ahead, and comments that make no sense without having seen the movie:]

I did think this was a watered-down version of much more innovative films (and I felt like I'd seen this movie 50 times before). I sort of agree, by god, with Armond White that this is a more humane and compassionate film than Margot and other similar films. This was really the best thing I can say about it. Most of it rang false. There were too many big, revelatory moments crammed into such a short period. We didn't need her long confession at the rehab meeting, the content of which would have been inferred anyway (although I suppose it shows her being "honest," and therefore overcoming her previous lies about her past). I didnt like the way the film gave us villains--the bridesmaid, and in the end, the mother--to make Kym more sympathetic by comparison. Despite the dogme-esque aesthetic, the camera was sure to hone in on every significant look and gesture, to make sure we knew what the characters were REALLY feeling.

[Antoine Doinel]

How Older White Critics Have Missed The Boat

[domino harvey]

I feel stupider for having read that

[lacritfan]

Good but not great film. I kind of see Anne Hathaway's performance as a big step up from her goodie two shoe roles as opposed to totally breaking out of them, I think she has more growing to do (and much potential). Agree with the others that this really isn't Altmanesque, style is totally Dogme 95 but if anything I saw flashes of Cassavetes. I know it's early but I hope Jenny Lumet gets nominated for Best Screenplay, the Oscars being what they are she might get it as much out of nepotism as anything else but then the Oscars being what they are it would be nice if they gave it to her so she can be the first African American woman to win one (maybe first African American ever?), and her dad would be proud.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw the film this afternoon and thought it was a very, very good. As others have noted, Jenny Lumet's script brings a complexity and depth that is largely missing from addiction/family dysfunction films. This probably one of the better ensemble performances I've seen in a long time. Yes, Anne Hathaway is very good, but I have a feeling that's heightened by the mediocre roles she's done in the past. For me, the best and most interesting performance of the film was by Bill Irwin, as the father to Kym and Rachel. He really captured the beaten down, difficult position of a father who watched his family get ripped apart by various tragedies. While I enjoyed how the film really settled in for the weekend at the home, as we got to see how the families interacted (the extended rehearsal dinner is a wonderful sequence), for me the film went on about fifteen minutes too long, trying to find a pat resolution where one with a bit more lingering questions would've felt more honest.

[Grand Illusion]

Irwin's physicality instilled an unexpected je ne sais quoi to his character. Completely believable, but his mannerisms brought life to what could've been a black hole character.

[Tom Hagen]

The dishwashing set piece was one of the best scenes that I have seen in a film in years; what Irwin does with that scene is beyond brilliant. Demme also handles that scene so well. A lesser director perhaps would have given us the reaction shot before cutting away to emotional stimulus. Demme sets it up so brilliantly by giving the audience a slight glimpse of what is coming next. We get to see -- for just a second -- the critical information that Kym, in a rare moment of real joy, misses completely. It doubles the tragedy of the scene: even when Kym is trying to inconspicuously reingratiate herself into the family dynamic during a moment of happiness -- enthusiastically counting along with everyone else (for once, in the background), hurriedly grabbing more plates to help her father -- she still manages to reopen deep emotional wounds.

[AWA]

This finally came to my city and I went to see it last night (before watching "Doubt" as well). What a great film! I was a bit put off by the handheld camera work at first in the initial scenes, but by the time it got to the house / marriage party stuff, it was working out great and provided the film with a watchful wandering eye that perfectly suited the situations and the script. There was some genuinely compelling acting performances here, Hatahaway especially. The long c/u at the addict meeting where she finally spills the beans on what happened to put her in this situation was exceptional - the bland, naked light in the close up captured every twitch and tremble of her face as she worked into some pretty desperate emotions.

I was also happy with the ending, which

SpoilerShow

didn't come to any grandoise conclusions about life, love and family nor did it make some sort of quasi-meaningful peace with the family... the peace made with the sisters only exposes who the real problem was, which was the mother who never loved her own children (which, for what it's worth, reminded me of that scene in Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage where that divorcee admits she never loved her children, ever... and I did think of Ingmar and that film more than a few times while watching this film, btw). Funny theatre moment too - when the lights go up on the credits, an older lady sitting behind me sums up the film's plot: "So... the mother never cared for her family and her neglect is really at the root for all those problems?"... second lady: "Yeah, seems about right. Guess they figured that out by the end there."

Also - the humor worked really well. Kind of funny that Wes Anderson "Life Aquatic" joke of having the soundtrack / score played by characters on set worked wonders here. The emotional scene in the hairdresser was funny in an embarrassing sort of way with all that crap stuck in Kym's hair and what not.

My only criticism of the film was that Demme seemed to indulge in proving how diverse his musical tastes are by allowing certain scenes based around music to go on too long, especially the wedding reception scene, which just sidetracked the film for far too long. This could've lost an additinal 10 - 20 minutes in editing to make it sharper.

Overall, 4.5/5. I look forward to seeing this again.