Rachel Getting Married is the new movie by Jonathan Demme, written by Jenny Lumet and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin.
Plot:
Kym (Anne Hathaway) gets out of rehab for the weekend to attend her sister Rachel’s (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding. During that weekend, family is being family, with all its ensuing problems, fights and quarrels, but also support, laughter and love.
Though the film has some lengths, it’s a fine piece of cinema with stellar performances by everyone.
I really enjoyed this film. I felt like they really captured the “big family” feeling that I know from my own family. Some movies can’t seem to get that at all, like the writers always wished for a big family but never had one. But here, the balance between organisation and chaos, togetherness and loneliness was perfectly held.
I liked the writing in general, though the whole interculturality of the wedding got a bit over the top for me. Okay, it was Indian themed. Why the hell were there Samba dancers then?I also thought that there could have been some cuts around the partying in the end – it got a bit long.
Everybody’s talking about Anne Hathaway, who really was very good in the role. But I also want to point out Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin, who gave perfect performances as well. Nuanced, with a lot of heart and a lot of sensitivity.
I liked that there was no real resolution to the story. It was only a weekend in their lives, not some deus ex machina solution to all their problems. And yet, it ended on a positive note.
And another thing – nobody was evil. Everybody had their moments when they behaved like assholes. And then they didn’t again. Everybody tried their best and some did better than others.
Well, altogether, it’s a film I can really recommend.
kalafudra's Stuff 
I didn’t like this movie very much. I found all the hipsters annoying. And ironically, after watching 10 minutes of the movie, I knew exactly how it would end, in that the ‘story’ would remain ‘unresolved’, the characters would be beautifully sketched with plenty of gray areas, and I would be going- WTF was that.
Not that I thought the movie was badly made or boring; it had its moments, but underwhelming on the whole.
To each their own I guess. :)
I can see why you didn’t like it, but I guess you have to like those kinds of movies in general – which I do.
I usually love kooky indie movies with unlikable characters eking out their lives in an absurd universe. But yeah, this one was just one of those things I guess. :)
Incidentally, there’s a name for this phenomenon, of movies that either inspire adoration or derision, and nothing in between- the “Napolean Dynamite Effect” (I movie that I absolutely loved, btw.).
I haven’t seen Napolean Dynamite, maybe I should give it a try. But dichotomies like that are not that rare, at least in my experience. Gaiman’s American Gods would be one example in book form. Another would be Atlas Shrugged.
But in any case, it’s good to have a name for it.