Getting Married
Rachel Getting Married is a 2008 drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. The film was released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3, 2008. The film opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival. The film also opened in Canada's Toronto Film Festival on September 6, 2008.
Plot summary
Kym (Anne Hathaway), a woman perhaps in her mid-twenties, is released from rehab for more than a few days so she can go home to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). At home, the atmosphere is strained between Kym and her family members, as they struggle to reconcile themselves with her past and her presence. Kym's father shows intense concern for her well-being and whereabouts, which Kym interprets as mistrust. She also resents her sister's choice of a friend, rather than Kym, to be her maid of honor. Rachel, for her part, resents the attention her sister's addiction is drawing away from her wedding, a resentment that comes to a head at the rehearsal dinner, where Kym, amid toasts from friends and family, takes the microphone to offer an apology for her past actions, as part of her twelve-step program.
Underlying the family's dynamic is a tragedy that occurred many years previously, which Kym retells at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. As a teenager, Kym was responsible for the death of her baby brother, who was left in her care one day despite her being high at the time. Driving home from a nearby park, Kym had lost control of the car, driving over a bridge and into a river, where her brother drowned.
The day before the wedding, as Rachel, Kym, and the other bridesmaids are getting their hair done, Kym is approached by a man who she knew in an earlier stint in rehab. He thanks her for the strength she gave him through a story about her childhood sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle. Rachel, hearing this, storms out. The story, it turns out, was all a lie, an apparent attempt by Kym to evade responsibility for her addiction. The sisters' fight comes to a head later that night, leading Kym to escape to her mother's house. However, she finds no respite there, as a fight with her mother comes to blows. She runs off again, this time intentionally crashing her car into a giant rock, and sleeps the night in the car.
The next morning, the day of the wedding, Kym is awoken by police. After passing a sobriety test, she gets a ride home. She makes her way to Rachel's room, as Rachel prepares for the wedding. Seeing Kym's bruised face, the anger of the previous night vanishes, and Rachel tenderly bathes and dresses Kym.
Amid a festive Indian theme, Rachel and her fiancé are wed. Kym is the maid of honor, and is overcome with emotion as the couple exchange their vows. Kym tries to enjoy herself throughout the wedding reception, but continues to feel out of place and is nagged by the unresolved dispute with her mother. Ultimately, her mother leaves the party early, despite Rachel's effort to bring the two together, and the gulf between Kym and her mother is left unreconciled.
The next morning, Kym must return to rehab. As she is leaving, Rachel runs out of the house to hug her, their sisterly love remaining strong despite all that has passed between them.
Production
The screenplay was written by Jenny Lumet, the daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of Lena Horne. Lumet, a junior high school drama teacher, has written four earlier screenplays, but this was the first to be produced. The film is directed by Jonathan Demme, and was shot in Stamford, Connecticut in a naturalistic style. The working title for the film was originally Dancing with Shiva .
It was Sidney Lumet himself who approached Demme about his daughter Jenny's script. Demme has commented that he loved Jenny's flagrant disregard for the rules of formula, her lack of concern for making her characters likable in the conventional sense and for what he considered to be her bold approach to truth, pain, and humor.
Filming took 33 days and occurred in late 2007.
Cast
Casting
Demme had wanted to work with Anne Hathaway ever since he spotted her in a crowd at a screening five years earlier. He immediately took her in consideration for the role of Kym. Hathaway later said of her first reading Lumet's script: "I was in my old apartment in the West Village , just pacing back and forth between the kitchen table and the couch. I somehow wound up on the floor sobbing by the last page."
Rosemarie DeWitt was considered by the film's casting directors. Demme and the rest of the crew were impressed and immediately wanted her to play Rachel. Bill Irwin is one of Demme's dear friends and neighbor.
Tunde Adebimpe's role, Sidney, was originally offered to American film director Paul Thomas Anderson while he was working on the post-production of the movie There Will Be Blood .
Demme was concerned about Debra Winger's interest in doing the film, but he pumped up his courage to ask her because they had met several times before at the Jacob Burns Center, a film center close to their homes. Winger later accepted the role of Abby.
Critical reception
The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a triumph of ambience," and that Hathaway, DeWitt, Irwin and especially Winger are working at a very high level. Roger Ebert's four-star rating added, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, Rachel Getting Married is like the theme music for an evolving new age." Other critics praised Jonathan Demme for USA Today "a career of cinematic good works" (Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer ) and "his best film since The Silence of the Lambs ...as raw as Ingmar Bergman and as operatic as Mildred Pierce (Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly).
Peter Travers noted that Rachel Getting Married is "a home run... deep into the joy and pain of being human."A.O. Scott of the New York Times said that the film has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit that feels welcome and rare.
Many reviewers praised the film for its organic, unfussy feel; Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek noted that "with 'Rachel Getting Married,' Demme has once again scaled back, making a picture that has some of the ease and warmth of his earlier movies, although it also feels stripped down and direct in a way that's new for Demme." USA Today proclaimed: "After a foray in documentary films, director Jonathan Demme has returned to narrative storytelling, assuming a decidedly cinéma vérité style that has echoes of Robert Altman. The film's greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism in portraying dinner parties and interpersonal encounters that can throw family members off-kilter." . The Los Angeles Times noted: "Helping give this story its essential air of reality is the decision Demme and cinematographer Quinn made to shoot it as what they call 'the most beautiful home movie ever made.'" The director chose not to plan shots in advance, instead giving Quinn (whose credits include Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding") the ability to respond in the moment to what was going on with the actors, and it's a tribute to his ability (and that of editor Tim Squyres) that his camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time." .
Anne Hathaway won raves for her work as Kym. USA Today called her "wonderful... nervous laughter, edginess and quick temper blend convincingly with her need for attention and vulnerability." Newsweek commented: "Kym is a major pain in the ass, and Hathaway's raw, spiky performance makes no attempt to ingratiate. Yet she makes Kym's inner torment so palpable you can't help but feel for her, however insufferable she may be. It's a terrific performance..." . Empire felt that "Kym is a peach of a role — she sleeps with the best man, fights with the maid of honour, quips, 'You’re so thin, it’s like you’re Asian' — and Hathaway squeezes it for all the juice it’s worth, making this raw-nerved, narcissistic Tasmanian Devil not just believable, but somehow likable."
The film currently holds an overall 86% at Rotten Tomatoes and a 94% from selected "top critics".
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.
Music
The music-loving director Demme invited musicians to compose the score live on set, to support the film's storyline.
"For the longest time," Demme has said, "I've had this desire to provide the musical dimension of a movie without traditionally scored music. I thought: wait a minute; in the script, Paul is a music-industry bigwig, Sidney's a record producer, many of his friends will be gifted musicians, so of course there would be non-stop music at this gathering. We have music playing live throughout the weekend, but always in the next room, out on the porch or in the garden."
Throughout the unconventional filming and loosely staged scenes, a New York-based Middle Eastern ensemble, including the Palestinian musician Zafer Tawil, and Iraqi Amir ElSaffar, who played the score of Demme's documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, compose the score on set. Always present at the filming, the musicians had the freedom – and were encouraged – to play whenever they were inspired to, and to ignore the camera.
Well-known acting faces mingle anonymously on-screen with musicians, artists, dancers and acting-novice friends
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