Movie No. 3 at TIFF was Rachel Getting Married, with actors Anne Hathaway, Rosemary Dewitt, and Deborah Winger in attendance. Director Jonathon Demme introduced the group, reminding the audience that yes, Deborah Winger is in his film. I’ve never been a huge fan of Hathaway, who plays the recovering drug addict, Kym, and gets let out of rehab just in time for her sister Rachel (Dewitt)’s wedding. After watching her performances in Princess Diaries, Devil Wears Prada and Brokeback Mountain, I saw Hathaway mostly as a goodie-goodie. But when I saw the trailer for Rachel, I was immediately intrigued. Hathaway was a dark, troubled, selfish character… something she’s never been before.
I was more than pleasantly surprised by her performance; I was blown away, actually. Fast forward to Best Lead Actress nomination. Seriously. She is so powerful in so many of her scenes, it’s hard not to feel for her and even more impossible not to get emotional (I teared up at least three times). I felt like an outsider with her when around her family, felt smothered by her dad (Bill Irwin), rejected by her mom (Winger), and went back and forth with how I felt about her sister, Rachel (Dewitt). It was the relationship between these two that really made this film have such a huge impact on me. Sometimes it seemed like their relationship didn’t make sense. In one scene, Rachel tells her Dad that she hates Kym, and you know she means it. But in the next scene she explains to Rachel that she’s the only one who has always been on her side. Rachel calls her out on everything she does wrong and sometimes I hated her for it, but other times she is such a protective, loving sister that she became my favorite character in the film. Winger had another strong performance as Rachel and Kym’s mom. She didn’t have a lot of screen time but there is one particularly intense scene when Kym confronts her. Besides that, it’s like she’s never there…mentally or physically.
While all the dysfunctional family issues are going on and tragedy from the past is brought to the present, Rachel is in the midst of preparing for her wedding with her fiancé, Sidney. It’s weird because Rachel’s family is so messed up, but Sidney’s family is the epitome of strength and stability. The actual wedding is the joining of two very different families in a very untraditional way, and while it was incredibly moving during the ceremony when Sidney serenades Rachel, the wedding party dragged on a little too long for me.
It’s a very serious movie full of heartbreak but Kym’s one saving grace is the best man in the wedding, Kieran (Mather Zickel). He had a way of lightening the mood in any room and was immediately likable from his first scene when he makes a joke about blowing his dealer … “only once!” to being the only person to stick up for Kym when no one else would.
Ultimately, Rachel Getting Married is worth seeing if just for the different relationships and interactions that go on between all the characters. It’s a very real movie with a lot of raw emotion. I felt emotionally drained when the credits started to roll, but Rachel passed what I call the “Next Day test”… wake up the next morning and can’t stop thinking about the movie. Even now, four days later, I can’t stop thinking about this movie. Go see it October 3.
IMDB: 7.2
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
moviewiseguys: 7.5