Rachel Getting Married (2008)

	Directed by: Jonathan Demme	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Rachel Getting Married RUNNING TIME 114 minutes
	Produced by: Neda Armian Marc E. Platt
	Written by: Jenny Lumet

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Kym	Anne Hathaway	½
Rachel	Rosemarie DeWitt
Paul	Bill Irwin	½
Abby	Debra Winger
Sidney	Tunde Adebimpe
Kieran	Mather Zickel	½
Carol	Anna Deavere Smith
Emma	Anisa George

Review

I must confess that I had never been terribly impressed with Anne Hathaway, and I didn't think I was going to see her in a role in which her often self-centered persona wasn't going to be a hindrance to sympathising with her. Remarkably, when she rises to the occasion in Rachel Getting Married, it is through playing an explicitly self-centered and inconsiderate junkie who tries to rediscover her love for her family and herself during the weekend of her sister's marriage.

The talent on display in Rachel Getting Married is evident from the get-go, with great craftsmen deployed on both sides of the camera. That being said, the film takes some time getting into its stride and separating itself from other suburban psychoanalytical indie-films. What does the trick, in addition to the superb acting from Hathaway and the not particularly renowned character actor Bill Irwin as her father, is Jonathan Demme's attractive, absorbing direction. His bold style allows lengthy non-narrative sequences of arrangements, chatter, speeches and songs at both rehearsal dinners and weddings. It works because we get gradually sucked into the reality of a wedding weekend and the appurtenant family's mechanisms and nature. Demme thus brings the screenplay by Jenny Lumet (Sidney's daughter) to life, elevating what could easily have become a lesser end result.