Review: Rachel Getting Married
“When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister, Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt) she brings a long history of personal crisis, family conflict, and tragedy along with her.”
The film, directed by Oscar winner Jonathan Demme and written by first time screen-writer Sidney Lumet, is an inspired portrayal of the family dynamic and addiction/recovery. Demme, best known for Silence of The Lambs and Philadelphia, works his magic once again here by displaying an understanding that this story is realistic and tries not to make anything “overtly dramatic”.
Their are two central stories, Kym’s recovery and adaptation to her family and her relationship with Rachel, and both are portrayed truly and keep you glued to the screen. I felt completely engaged in their relationship and fully identified with how the relationship between two siblings was portrayed.
This of course is a testament to not only the writer, but to the actors. Dewitt plays Rachel as someone who is happy, smart, and has it all together except she also has some serious sibling/daddy issues. This is an enjoyable juxtaposition to Hathaway’s Kym, who is a young woman who has nothing together but she is trying and she has this wonderful wit and sense of humor that makes you want to like her, which makes perfect sense with the characters history. It is within this dynamic that the film is given its heart. The rest of the cast is excellent and all play wonderfully together to create this huge family environment.
Alas though, it is Hathaway and Dewitt who steal the show; if both do not get nominated by the Academy it would be a joke, and I believe Hathaway deserves the win for her moving portrayal.
