Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, brief sensuality and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.08
Buy DVD: Rachel Getting Married
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I survived Robert Mitchum's psychopathic preacher from Night of the Hunter
, albeit while peeking between my 9-year-old fingers. I made it through the final scene in Carrie
, back in the day before "gotcha epilogues" became a cliché. I marched into the night on wobbly legs after John Carpenter's first Halloween
, but nonetheless moved under my own power. I weathered both the first Alien
and Anthony Hopkins' debut performance as Hannibal Lecter, in Silence of the Lambs
. |
| As the tumultuous weekend proceeds, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt, right) becomes increasingly irritated by the behavior of her dysfunctional sister, Kym (Anne Hathaway), who can't seem to survive without being the center of attention. Rarely has sibling rivalry been more pregnant with unspoken complaints and buried hostility ... and this is merely the beginning. |
I also recall, at a young age when my parents should have known better, cowering behind an armchair as a giant spider — no doubt so hokey that I'd laugh at it today — menaced the jungle lord in one of Johnny Weissmuller's numerous grade-Z Tarzan entries. (Indiana Jones doesn't do snakes. I don't do spiders.)
But nothing has ever, ever scared me as much as Anne Hathaway's fumble for the microphone during the rehearsal dinner scene in Rachel Getting Married.
I didn't just want to crawl under the chair; I wanted to flee the county. Anything to prevent having to endure the slow emotional explosion about to erupt on the screen.
Director Jonathan Demme's new film, graced with a raw and sharply observant script from Jenny Lumet — daughter of director Sidney Lumet — is a painfully intimate examination of a dysfunctional family brought together for a wedding ceremony that takes place over one tumultuous weekend.
It's a fascinating, cleverly assembled film, and profoundly difficult to watch. On the one hand, I can't imagine recommending it as a good time at the movies; on the other hand, Hathaway delivers a starring performance that's as fearless, blunt and exposed as anything you're likely to see this year ... or next.
I'm generally not a fan of video verité; thus far, the gimmick has been employed mostly to conceal the weak, logically bankrupt storytelling in low-rent horror quickies like The Blair Witch Project
, Cloverfield
and the just-released Quarantine
.But just as it took a director with Alfred Hitchcock's chops to show how 3D cinematography really should be used — back in the 1950s, with Dial M for Murder
— Demme and cinematographer Declan Quinn have exploited high-def video in a way that not only makes perfect sense, but forcefully complements the story being told. Indeed, about halfway through the film, I stopped noticing the jiggly camerawork and often under- or overexposed lighting, and felt like I had become part of the newly extended Buchman family celebration ... which, of course, was precisely Demme's intent.
