Rachel Getting Married

Cinema Release Date: April 15, 2009
Film already available on DVD since: October 21, 2009
Directed by Jonathan Demme

With Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, more
Original Title: Rachel Getting Married
American feature film. Genre: Drama
Time: 01h53min Production Year: 2008
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing France

                                           Rachel Getting Married Theatrical Trailer

Rachel Getting Married, the new film by Jonathan Demme. In this movie, at the time of the wedding preparations, Rachel does not constitute the backbone. It is her younger sister, Kym, who falls on this role. This is to say literally and figuratively, that the whole movie revolves around her. To own because it is, somehow, the ugly duckling of the family, which is actually just the knowledge he left the rehabilitation center where she stayed for nine months. Figuratively, because the director uses and abuses of the camera carried on the shoulder, giving Rachel marries one side falsely amateur, that the semi-improvised dialogue make us so unbearable. The characters are so outrageous that the film, sometimes, are not very good for us to appreciate it.

 
When you are a family member, marked by an ancient tragedy (the death of a child) and guilt resulting mainly from Kym, plagued by the loss of his little brother, you would be very sorrowful. Bungled by remorse and swallowed drugs to repel, if not forgotten, Kym is evil personified-being: self-centered, paranoid, capricious. She is the exact opposite of Rachel, a daughter, who is ready to marry with Sydney, a charming boy. Little by little, we discover that the damage caused by the old drama: the separation of parents, as well as the two sisters are separated from each other.

                                         Rachel Getting Married

Rather than offer treatment to tighten their relationships, Jonathan Demme multiplies the secondary characters and scenes of groups, but always keep them under control at the limit of the virtuoso. The quest for spontaneity chosen by the filmmaker, however, relies on a concrete scenario. The film is well written. It culminates in the long scene of the meal before the wedding, when everyone had their own toast groom.
 
It is therefore regrettable that, more than once, Rachel Getting Married deviates from its main axis. However, it is actually quite superficial by focusing on the dishwasher. And the last half an hour, despite it crystallizes all the accumulated tension, sufferings from a strangely lopsided building: the wedding reinforces music and dancing, which are so fun that there is nothing to add in it.

A broken home where the injury does not heal, but also a group assembled by her love of music and open-mindedness (Rachel marries a black and assembly is very cosmopolitan) in a beautiful house, it makes us to think of the latest feature film by Olivier Assayas and Arnaud Desplechin. But comparing with them: this movie fills with some cartoon characters, which helps us to think about the meaning, good feelings, images behind it.