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Summer 2008-9
Rachel Getting Married movie review
Home Movie, Big Screen, Small Story
When drug addict Kym (Anne Hathaway) exits rehab to go home for her sister's (Rosemarie De Witt) wedding, the audience knows there are going to be tantrums.
Kym has survived killing-by-car with her self-centredness intact. She launches her sisterly contribution to the even with a hissy fit over not being the maid of honour and her behaviour goes downhill from there.
Producer/director Demme, whose portfolio includes the entertaining Married to the Mob and the heart-wrenching and provocative Philadelphia elected to make a home movie-like picture of this, the script of a friend's daughter.
Movie poster, Rachel Getting Married, Festivale film review
The scenes of "conflict" and "revelation" in Rachel Getting Married are played out like acting studio pieces, and everyone is performing carefully to demonstrate their characterisations.
The larger scenes of ritual and celebration were filmed with wedding photographer realism. This makes watching the movie exactly like watching the wedding video of your next-door neighbour's cousin's best friend's aunty.
If you are a wedding junkie - a FAMILY wedding junkie, not a glitzy wedding junkie, then this film could fill in for a weekend without an actual wedding scheduled. On the other hand, if spending 48 hours filled with amateur musicians, amateur singers, amateur public speakers, pathetic religious platitudes and amateur dancers doesn't seem enticing, then this is not the film for you.
There is a difference between events and experiences that are universally resonant, and therefore powerful and the cliches of the mundane and everyday.
Hatches, matches and dispatches may be pivotal to those immediately concerned, but to engage the interest of bystanders they need to be OUT of the ordinary.
Drama tells a story by showing us an illusion of real life. A slice of ordinary life is not drama, just as each death is not a tragedy to those it does not touch. Home movies, like household excitements, are insignificant; gossip, not drama.
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by Ali Kayn |
Just the facts:Title: Rachel Getting Married (2008) The Players: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie De Witt, Debra Winger Official website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/rachelgettingmarried For session times of current films, use the cinema listings on the Movie links page. For scheduled release dates, see the coming attractions section. For more information about this movie, check out the internet movie database. |
Published in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 
Filed: 1-Mar-2008