Jonathan Demme: Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Jonathan Demme: Rachel Getting Married (2008)

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Wedding drama drama drama, and it's all good

Review by Chris Knipp

Rachel Getting Married is extremely accomplished filmmaking. The story it tells is a triumph of unified mainstream feel-good family dysfunctionality--and an elaborate drama whose background and foreground intensities never let up. The world depicted is a multi-cultural one. The bride and groom are of mixed race and the stepmother Carol (Anna Deavere Smith), wife of the sisters' eager-to-please dad Paul (Bill Irwin) is also black. Though with evident good will, the ethnic variety seems exaggerated for liberal-humanistic effect. It's a faux-Indian Jewish-Black wedding (with, as usual, one token male Asian-American on hand); but it takes place in the unmistakably WASP setting of Stamford, Connecticut, and the WASP element of white privilege trumps all the rest. Most of the action occurs in the big clapboard house in Stamford owned by the rich white family or on its ample grounds. The groom, Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe) is black, but let's face it, he's given a very secondary role to the drama-queen ladies. "Race doesn't matter" is a white message. To non-whites in America, it always does matter.

The big gathering is described with a jittery dogma-esque camera à la Thomas Vinterberg's vindictive Celebration, treading ground covered by Robert Altman and various others. Going home for the holidays is difficult for almost any family members. When there are "issues"--and when aren't there?--it's a test of those returning. Jodie Foster's 1995 Thanksgiving film was a good example and Robert Downey Jr. helped dramatize the craziness of such events. The difference here is that Demme manages major confrontations within a film of Altman-esque complexity and his resolutions aren't ironic.

The family of the bride, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), is one whose dysfunction is focused primarily on problems surrounding the drug addiction of Rachel's beautiful but troubled sister, Kym (Anne Hathaway), a recovering drug addict (nine months clean in rehab) who's caused terrible tragedy in the past and whose temporary release from her program for the wedding and return to it afterward bookend the drama. This rehab is so posh it has an employee personally assigned to Kym to pick her up after it's all over.

In a way Kym is an early-release deus ex machina to stir up the family's conflicts. The movie spends more than enough time on 12-step recovery. Kym is seen going to two meetings during her furlough. Somewhat too conveniently, the groom's best friend Kieran (Mather Zickel) turns out to be there at the first meeting, in recovery himself. In a "13th step" violation of recovery rules, they immediately have sex.

To a jaundiced eye, the whole elaborate get-together is a device to show a family self-destructing and then healing again. But that's okay because Demme's heart is in the right place and this time he has made up with specificity and grittiness for the utter conventionality of the predominantly straight look at gay tragedy set forth in the director's prize-winning Philadelphia. To back up the energetic depiction of family dynamics, the performances, some of them by non-actors, are uniformly strong. This is wedding drama drama drama, but it’s all good.

The major fracas is the confrontation between Rachel and Kym after Kym's speech at the pre-nup dinner full of 12-Step recovery "amends" to the people present, highlighting her problem and her current reformation. Rachel accuses Kym of hijacking the whole event, and for that matter of monopolizing family attention throughout their lives. Actually Kym's speech is pivotal because it links recovery and the marriage. The sisters' big verbal fight afterward seems real and justified. Ultimately what emerges is that because of the family history, Rachel isn't capable of being fully supportive of Kym's recovery and doesn't even understand it.

One can argue that the whole recovery theme steals the movie. But conventional as the messages are, they're still new to the screen in such plain form and they give the wedding theme a twist that's welcome.

Another recovery element is the way Rachel inadvertently (somewhat artificially) learns that Kym's rehab narrative of the family has been exaggerated. Never mind what it was; the point is it's not at all how Rachel sees their experience. In fact later Kym admits in front of the family that it was distorted. This is realistic, the sense that an addict may paint her experience in lurid colors, and that other family members may be alienated by that.

To hear what writers have said about the movie you'd think we ought to be waiting throughout for the excellent, rarely seen Debra Winger's big scene. That's wrong. There's no big scene, and everybody else is just as good if not better. Debra Winger doesn't have a decisive moment; it's not written that way. The really big moments come from other sources, manly the sisters.

Demme loves World Music and provides a lot of sound throughout. It seems a bit far-fetched really, that there are musicians on hand practicing for the wedding day 24 hours beforehand, that the sounds never stop. They become as annoying as the jittery camera and at one point the actors even command them to stop. But after the wedding ceremony the sounds are rich and fun--and a relief of tension--and it's great to see the wonderful Sister Carol East, whose singing lit up Married to the Mob and Something Wild (Demme's heyday), doing a great song at a climactic point.

If this is the show a white liberal puts on, gee, it's not bad at all. Rachel Getting Married deserves to be gone over more critically and more specifically than it has been by film critics so far, but it's likely that the movie will survive hard looks. If it has passed muster already with the crusty African-American critic Armond white, it's rock solid. White wrote that Rachel Getting Married avoids "the hip nihilism of repugnant family dramas like Margot at the Wedding," and he calls this "a family-chaos film that’s also lively and fertile." " Rachel Getting Married’s social scale and emotional fullness would do Renoir and Altman proud," White concludes, but "still it’s Demme’s genuine vision." It's all true. This is conflict film that's able to confront hard family issues and still emerge positive, loving, and joyous.

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Written by Jenny Lumet
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Anna Deavere Smith and Debra Winger

Kym: I’m alive and I’m present and there’s nothing controlling me.

I’m sure there are a number of people out there who actually get excited when they check the mail to find the next in a seemingly never ending string of wedding invitations. I am not that person. Unless the invitation is to attend the nuptials of a dear friend or a close family member, all I see is an invitation to what will inevitably be a long day of small talk and potentially awkward speeches that will cost me a lot more than the day at the movies I would much rather be having. You are about to get an invitation to an entirely different kind of wedding though and not only must you RSVP as soon as possible, you must get yourself looking your best because this is a wedding I can guarantee you will enjoy. You will laugh and cry, be horrified and be moved all within the span of one intimate weekend despite not knowing a single other person there. This invitation comes from veteran filmmaker, Jonathan Demme, and this uniquely grounding catharsis is what happens when you attend RACHEL GETTING MARRIED.

Yes, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is getting married but that is far from the only big event happening on this particular weekend. Her sister, Kym (Anne Hathaway), is also coming home for the wedding after nine months in rehab for drug addiction. Kym has been in and out of facilities for a number of years and her disease has taken a hard toll on her family. This time is different though as she has now gone nine months sober, just enough time to be reborn as a new person. Only, no one knows whether they can trust this, including Kym herself, and subsequently, no one knows exactly how to resolve the past and the present. Despite all this potential drama brewing, Demme shows up at the Connecticut house with an extensive crew of cameramen and is allowed full access. This is no ordinary wedding story though. What Demme strings together is a seamless documentary style expose of one family at a pivotal point in their history. The shots and cuts are as jagged as Hathaway’s choppy bob, creating a constant edginess throughout that is soothed only by the numerous musically inclined wedding guests casually playing in adjoining rooms.

In order for Demme’s brave, raw approach to elevate past gimmick and achieve the harrowing beauty that it does, the players need to come off as natural and as familial as possible. Obviously, any actor in any film needs to give a strong performance in order for the film to be better but it is imperative here in order for the viewer to feel that they are actually a guest at this wedding. The cast is superb. As Rachel, DeWitt is a woman filled with both love and fear. She is surrounded by love from her immediate family and new extended family but she is also worried that all this love will be taken away from her as it has in the past. Her father, played by Bill Irwin, is as giddy as a young boy to be giving away his oldest daughter and to have his youngest back at home. The girls’ estranged mother, played very subtly by Debra Winger, is noticeably absent even when she’s in the room. It is naturally Hathaway though that shines brightest. Yes, she does have the showiest part, but it is how well she owns this role that is most impressive, in that it is altogether surprising given her previous work. Hathaway is a force that demands attention whenever she is on screen, which only further lends weight to the fragile, unintentional neediness of her character. She inspires both disdain and sympathy but never seems to care which we feel more.

When I first saw RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, I felt disoriented leaving the theatre. Once I had finished drying my eyes, I had to sit down because I didn’t feel ready to walk. This is Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece. It is filled with such candid moments from random friends singing at the rehearsal dinner to intense family eruptions that make you feel as though you should leave the room. It is all so real, all so warm and all so deeply personal. There is an abundance of love at this wedding but like any great love, it comes with great potential for pain and sorrow. And while it may be a horrible struggle at times, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED always strives to focus on the love and the future that love will make possible.

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Hey Chris. I'm glad to read that you enjoyed this film as much as I did. I saw it for the second time last night and it turned me inside out just as much. I hope this film rises up come award season and that it is recognized for much more than just Anne Hathaway's performance.

I'm different in that I wanted to hate this movie for various reasons. I also share your dislike of weddings. I've never been to a gay wedding, that might be better. I wanted to hate it, but I could not. It's just too good. I am sure it's one of the year's best American films.

In English films Happy-Go-Lucy and Steve McQueen's Hunger are the standouts.

*Rachel Getting Married serves as an illustration of how what is considered "avant garde" at one time eventually gets incorporated into the mainstream and becomes accepted by it. Demme's new film seems to a large extent to adhere to the Dogme 95 rules adopted in the mid to late Lars von Trier, Tomas Vinterberg and others. Critics of their films typically bitched about getting dizzy watching them. It seems that enough time has passed so that a mainstream American filmmaker with a "hot" actress in the lead can make a film entirely with handheld cameras and off-the-cuff framings without many complaints, not even from multiplex audiences.

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Reading both filmleaf reviews and subsequent comments gives me the impression Rachel Getting Married is being overrated by the critics. The metacritic score (82) seems to confirm this. Chris and mouton are not alone in claiming it to be a "masterpiece" or "one of the year's best American films". I don't suscribe to such high praise. Yet I am moved when reviewers express such passion for a film. If a film makes you feel "disoriented" and feeling you "had to sit down because (you) didn’t feel ready to walk" then your reviewing movies is time well spent.

And this year, calling Demme's film "one of the year's best American films" doesn't constitute quite an overstatement. Even movies "Joe the plumber" watched, like The Dark Knight, are likely to get a Best Picture nomination this year (this should result in better ratings for the Oscars telecast as prescribed by Richard Schickel in Time magazine). W and Body of Lies (and apparently The Changeling) turned out not to be good enough. The Weinstein brothers decided to bump the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road to next year. Paramount Vantage decided to do the same with the promising drama The Soloist with Robert Downey, Jr. Hunger and Happy-Go-Lucky hail from the UK, not the USA. Which leaves...not that much.

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Armond White is not the only critic referencing Margot at the Wedding. In his review from Toronto, Scott Foundas also uses it to make a point about Rachel Getting Married. Like Foundas, I also think Demme's picture suffers from the comparison (a major divergence from the views presented here by Chris and, I assume, mouton). Here's Foundas' review:

"Toronto's most crushing blows have been dealt by those filmmakers with the longest résumés and most gilded pedigrees, starting with Demme, whose fatuous Rachel Getting Married chronicles the reunion of a dysfunctional Connecticut clan on the eve of the eldest daughter's nuptials. Call it My Big Fat United Nations Wedding: The bride is Jewish (and possibly recovering from an eating disorder). The groom is black. The wedding is Indian-themed right down to the bridesmaids' saris. The maid of honor (Anne Hathaway) has just gotten out of rehab. A dead sibling looms large over the proceedings. And by the time the reception finally rolls around, Robyn Hitchcock (the subject of Demme's 1998 concert film Storefront Hitchcock) and a New Orleans jazz band show up for extended musical interludes, by which point Rachel Getting Married has long ago stopped making sense. How former president Jimmy Carter (star of Demme's 2007 Man From Plains) managed to avoid a cameo is something of a mystery.

Constantly teetering on the brink of hysteria and frequently tipping over into it, Rachel contains one 12-step program, two face-slappings, a car crash, an accidental drowning, multiple scenes of benevolent black folk (are there any other kind?) delivering soulful words of wisdom, and, before the end credits roll, copious tears and reconciliation. Some have likened Demme's film to Noah Baumbach's recent Margot at the Wedding, which is actually more like the kind of movie Demme used to make—the ones where the characters had edges and dimensions, and could be by turns loving and cruel, noble and deplorable. Here, we don't doubt for a second that we're watching a bunch of virtuous, good-hearted people who will manage to work out all of their problems, live happily ever after, and vote for Obama."

I feel, in general, that Foundas' complaints are valid and I love him for his defense of a film I ranked near the top of my 2007 list of favorite English-language films. However I didn't come out of Rachel Getting Married feeling that Kym and Abby "will manage to work out all their problems and live happily ever after". (warning:spoilers) The key is their scene together. It seems obvious to me that Kym is right in that she shouldn't shoulder the blame for the tragedy entirely alone. Given Kym's age and history when the accident took place, Abby is equally to blame but won't accept responsibility. Like mouton insightfully noted, Abby "is noticeably absent even when she’s in the room." This self-imposed absence is a direct consequence of her failure to face the fact that it was wrong to leave Kym in charge of her little brother or, more specifically, of her wish not to confront this fact. Abby slapping Kym and her leaving the wedding prematurely are signs that all is not well inside her. One wonders whether this is what broke up the marriage between Paul and Abby. Anyway, it's also hard to imagine Kym ever being truly happy having to shoulder all the blame and take full responsibility for the death of her little brother. Foundas falters towards the end of his review in failing to acknowledge this. Besides, the limitations and flaws in Jenny Lumet's story and script are somewhat placated by the quality of several performances and a style of filmmaking that's no longer "avant garde" but it's still effective when it comes to making a film feel like an authentic slice of life.

Well, I think that Foundas review is rather embarrassing, it's so mean-spirited; he was probably tired. I'm glad you acknowledge he falters at the end at least. It's true I like Armond Whilte prefer Rachel to Margot; the comparison is obvious, but maybe reveals nothing really. Of course I read Foundas' review weeks ago, in fact before I wrote mine.

It's fine to say everything sucks and Rachel will only stand out for that reason. But do we really know that? It's fine for Foundas to say the field at Tononto was marked by directors of high rep who faltered; this is an easy device to hold together a wrap-up piece; as you acknowledge elsewhere today, we don't always know what's going to look good or bad in the future. I only know that despite wanting to dislike Rachel, and NOT staggering out as mouton says he did, overwhelmed, but watching it very coldly, I was still impressed. You don't seem so unimpressed yourself.

I can't say what's going to happen to all the characters afterward. The are contained in the bubble of the film. But there's a lot going on there and a lot to talk about, if you want to talk about it--you yourself illustrate this.