To say that the Jonathan Demme-directed Rachel Getting Married is the role that Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, Love and Other Drugs) could be considered the ultimate compliment and, simultaneously, something that you hope isn’t true. I say that for a couple of reasons. First, if this is her crowning achievement, then what a movie to hang your hat on. With all due respect to 2012’s Les Miserables, Hathaway’s one performance as of the end of 2018 that has earned her an Academy Award win, I have a difficult time comparing that movie to Rachel Getting Married for no other reason than because while I have from time to time, I don’t typically review musicals. Much like documentaries or animated movies I never review, I wonder if I have much insight or more to offer regarding a singing film. With that said, I reviewed Les Miserables and found Hathaway’s scene-stealing performance as Fantine to be the highlight of a movie and a story I enjoy.
However, it didn’t compare to the powerhouse delivery she delivered four years earlier in her first Oscar-nominated performance as 25-year-old Kym, a recovering drug and alcohol addict currently living in a treatment recovery program who is given a weekend release so that she can partake in the festivities of her older sister wedding in the infrequently seen Rachel Getting Married. The second reason I hope this is not her career-defining performance is that at the time of this writing in January 2019, Hathway is just 36 years old and already has a Best Lead Actress Oscar nomination (for this movie) and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar win. My fear, though, is that it’s been six years since she’s done a film of that nature or magnitude, and the trajectory of her career seems to be leaning towards more fun, crowd-pleasing, and revenue-inducing roles (The Intern, Oceans 8, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Rio, Rio 2, etc.) than some of the thicker, heavier stuff that earned her early critical acclaim. However, as I look at her IMDB page, I see she already has a movie called The Lifeboat scheduled for a 2024 release.
Rachel Getting Married is a fine film that would have landed in the gutter without Hathaway’s on-point presence. Her knockout performance makes an otherwise probable pass into a must-watch for any film enthusiast. She’s that good. She isn’t necessarily the glue that holds this entire film together because there are quite a few cracks in the foundation that no single person could have covered. But her screen presence does make you forget about many of the more minor problems encountered along the way. The biggest flaw is that a lot happens in this movie over fewer than 48 hours. It’s honestly too much. At least in plot building, rising actions, tension, conflict, basic human emotion, recovery, celebration, etc. If it were just a wedding, that would be one thing. But then we wouldn’t have much of a movie either. So you take the ebbs with the flows and get what you can as a finished product.
There’s a lot to handle here. Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), whose top directorial performances will not include this movie, pours on the melodrama. Just once you think there couldn’t possibly be one more thing to add even more fuel to an already combustible fire, here comes a gallon of gasoline. Nothing was truly over the top, but he definitely could have turned the knob down a notch. As mentioned, Kym is on release from a rehabilitation facility to attend her sister’s wedding at the home of her father Paul (Bill Irwin – FX’s Legion) and stepmother Carol (Anna Deavere Smith), who we meet very early in this movie as they pick up Kym from the facility to drive her the couple hour drive back to their native New Hampshire home. There is tension early. Kym is an unstable, speak your mind, kind of woman who loves her family but is battling her demons. Adhering to her own agenda takes precedence in her life despite it being the most important day for her only living sibling. Paul is the family rock, and Irwin’s performance as the family patriarch shouldn’t be dismissed. He’s a good man, maybe not perfect, but he loves his daughters very much; his fervid concerns about her whereabouts throughout the weekend may come across as overbearing to Kym. Still, they also serve as a stark contrast to Kym and Rachel’s mother, Abby (Debra Winger – An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment), who is a fleeting presence at her best, both in their lives and, oddly, in this film.
There never seems to be a good time for bad things to happen. There is never a good time for an impending surgery, the need for long-term care for a sick parent or child, a close death, or a stint in rehab. A massive wedding (and a massive wedding at that) is not going to be postponed simply because Kym’s issues with substance abuse have resurfaced. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that things will operate as planned. Suddenly, there is this new variable in the unstable and unpredictable Kym, who hasn’t even met Rachel’s fiance, Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe – Spider-Man: Homecoming), until the day before the nuptials. Kym spends less time getting to know her future brother-in-law than she does trying to convince Rachel that she needs to make a last-second change and make her the maid of honor rather than just one of the bridesmaids. But there is a deeper dimension to Kym than just her addiction. Her indescribable grief haunts her, which probably most people would never be able to forgive themselves of. In addition to her addiction recovery, Kym is unsuccessfully trying to cope with tragedy from earlier in her life. It’s not an excuse for her behavior by any means. On the contrary, it fuels her behavior as she has no means to quiet it, and being with her family brings it even further to the front burner.
There is far more to Rachel’s weekend than being there for her sister’s big day; this is where the movie derails a bit. Much family drama needs unearthing between Kym and pretty much everyone related to her. There are drug tests that need to be completed, AA meetings that need to be attended, physical confrontations with family members, attempted suicides, reconciliations with plant characters to stir more drama, and new characters to disrupt Kym’s life. One of these characters is Kieran (Mather Zickel – Suburbicon, I Love You, Man), a fellow addict that she encounters at a local AA meeting who also happens to be Sidney’s best man. Kieran is a good man who comes across as sketchy early for reasons I don’t know. I will give away a minor spoiler here, but it’s essential to bring it up when discussing this film’s effectiveness (or lack thereof).
Within an hour of meeting each other, Kym and Kieran have hard, raw sex in the family’s basement, with plenty of time for pillow talk afterward. I bring up this scene for two reasons. The first is because it made each character and their pairing as a unit uneven. I thought that Kieran’s presence would initially be used to drive Kym even further away from the straight and narrow, but nothing could have been further from the truth. A recovering addict himself, aside from maybe Sidney, Kieran was the most endearing character in the film. This scene was intended to divide or confuse us, but it had us wondering afterward, “Why.” Also, I get that abnormal things happen all the time. I don’t think the best man and maid of honor having sex the day before a wedding while the entire wedding party is on the other side of a doorway is a novelty in this movie. Still, even when those types of things occur, those are moments shared between two individuals. It didn’t have to be something that we knew about. It didn’t advance the film. There were plenty of other indications to remind us of Kym’s unpredictability and instability. This weakened her and did nothing to advance Kieran.
Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt – La La Land, Your Sister’s Sister) wasn’t the most likable bride. She had plenty of her own drama and didn’t hide it. Unfortunately, it was another uneven performance. I understand that many emotions are associated with weddings (especially if you are the one getting married). Still, one minute, she whispers something sweet to Sidney, the next lecturing her younger sister about how she uses every situation to make the situation about herself. The next was reconciling with her mother about the years she and Rachel felt neglected by her. This all happens in the span of something incredulous, like six hours. There needs to be at least one character to challenge Kym and Rachel to fit that mold. But, in doing so, it left a sour taste in our mouths. Secretly, we may have hoped for Sidney to sneak out and hightail it to Hawaii (oh yeah, they are moving to Hawaii after the wedding, which Kym learns about at the rehearsal dinner).
The wedding itself felt exhausting. And all we had to do was watch small pieces of it. I’ve heard of lengthy Indian weddings that last multiple days. I understand cultural importance. I understand tradition. I understand the want for a 15-minute wedding in front of a local magistrate and to have everything done and complete with minimal money, time, and effort. Everyone is different. It was neat to see this wedding’s two full days of festivities, but it was also so fatiguing, given everything else going on with Kym, Rachel, and their family. It was all a little too much.
Rachel Getting Married was a movie that nearly fell apart at the seams. However, Hathaway saved this extremely flawed movie and made it a must-watch because of her performance. This film had one thing going for it and everything else against it. Yet that one factor in its favor was so strong that it could save it from itself. Hathaway presents the portrayal of an addict in the recovery process, tormented by insurmountable grief, as pure excellence. Hopefully, new generations of fans inspired by her future works will look at her filmography, see this movie they’ve likely never heard of as her first Oscar nomination, give it a chance, and watch a near-perfect performance in a film that was anything but perfect.
Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing 7.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
88.5%
B+
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