How slow. How boring. They didn't need to go into every detail of the wedding. Anne Hathaway is a good actress but the movie is terrible!
That's what my mother thought of Rachel Getting Married.
Me? I thought it was brilliant. I don't love all films with a documentary feel, and I'm not exactly a slavish fan of any director so I have no idea if this is Jonathan Demme's signature style, but it seemed perfectly appropriate.
Bride Wars, this ain't. The plot: Kym returns home from rehab to participate in her sister Rachel's wedding. She is the black sheep and it is made clear from the beginning that things aren't exactly peachy, and all the personalities in the family rub each other the wrong way. One minute Rachel and Kym are giggling and reminiscing (while Rachel's best friend and maid of honour Emma looks on jealously) and the next minute Rachel is screaming that everything is always about Kym Kym Kym. The root of what has torn the family apart is revealed in one of Kym's legally-mandated AA meetings, and the day after the wedding Kym quietly returns to rehab.
*spoiler* And let's not forget the brief sex scene between Kym and the groom's best man, Kieran, and fellow AA member, sordidly performed standing up in the basement of the house.
It doesn't sound very exciting and possibly over-dramatic but it was directed incredibly well and the cinematography was spot-on. I don't know what touched me most about the film, that our flaws can't always be 'made good' by the end of a feature-length film, that family doesn't kiss and make up, forgive and move on when big things happen (but we love them and will look out for them anyway), or that it doesn't matter how 'cool' or 'hardcore' a girl is - when her only sister gets married she had better be the maid of honour, Goddammit!
