Just saw a great, great little movie called Rachel Getting Married....well, it's not exactly "little" if you pay avid attention to entertainment press, such as myself. It's been a big talking subject as of late, and now that I've seen it, I can see why.
Genuinely touching, small in scale yet huge in scope. Pitch-perfect acting jobs, richly-scribed characters and exposition. It's one of those subtle cinematic gems that cland with a quiet thud, but once inhabited, smack your inner strings with jackhammer-like force.
I'll admit it....I got somewhat choked-up a few times while watching. Not teary-eyed or anything, so don't go crying "wussy," but just felt my heart tug a bit, mainly at the hands of a stellar performance by Anne Hathaway, as the film's lead: a recovering drug addict, who's the black sheep of an otherwise functional, loving family; she's come back home for a weekend to attend her older sister's wedding, reuniting with her estranged family who love her deepy and support her tremendously, yet she constantly combats them, to her own doing and fault, and tirelessly feels remorse over an accident that happened years ago while she was drugged up, which resulted in the death of her little brother.
Jonathan Demme, the great veteran filmmaker (who will always be "the man" in my eyes for Silence of the Lambs, chief amongst other quality flicks under his belt), opts to shoot this film with a DV-ish camera, meaning that the image is given a realistic, almost-documentary feel. And aside from Hathaway and Debra Winger (who plays Hathaway's emotionally-distant, divorced mother), the cast is pretty much all new faces and relative-unknowns, which lends the film a mood of "I'm merely a fly on the wall amidst this real-life, unfabricated domestic and familial drama." It plays like spades.
Rosemarie Dewitt, who plays the titular sister Rachel, is also pretty dynamite, it should be noted. But really, this ish belongs to Anne Hathaway, who proves that she's one-fucking-hell-of-an actress, showing depths of her skill-bank previously unseen and, truthfully, never ever anticipated. The scene where she awkwardly addresses the rehearsal dinner crowd with a misfired "making amends with Rachel" speech is at the same time painful to watch and endearing to experience. Same goes for a firecracker of a moment when Kym (Hathaway's character) confronts her mother after a heated exchange with Rachel--hoping to seek comfort in mother's home, Kym daringly asks her mother: "How could you leave him in my care?" Or something along those lines, that's a paraphrase job. But she's asking, "I was a fucking junkie, out of my head at all times....how the hell could you leave your little son under my supervision?" The way that Winger reacts comes full-force, out of nowhere. Hits harder than concrete.
Rachel Getting Married is simply put, a superb film. And I hate using the word 'superb,' feels like such a cliche one that critics overuse while lauding, but it really does apply here, so use it I shall. And just did, actually.
Granted, I've yet to see the impending flood of awards-season flicks on the way, but I'll be shocked if Hathaway doesn't make the "M.B Oscar Selections" list come next January. So what if that list is meaningless in the walls of Tinseltown? One day, if all goes well, it damn sure will.
That's the world I want to live in.
**And now, for no other reason besides pure gratuity, a va-va-voom-y Anne Hathway shot...even with her cracked-out look in Rachel, she's a scorcher in my book. Burnt page-tips and all.
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