Review: Rachel Getting Married (3.5/5)

Rachel Getting Married
(Jonathan Demme):
Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Debra Winger.
Running time: 111 minutes.
(15A)

Watching Anne Hathaway in this ensemble drama is akin to seeing a leggy, bug-eyed caterpillar transfigure into a butterfly of grace and iridescence. Hers is the kind of performance that, in any other year, would walk away with an Oscar.
It’s the story of Kym, a human Krakatoa, careering car-crash personality and 5 ft 8’’ bruise, who checks out of rehab for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Kym is a reformed drug addict and beats herself up for a sundering family tragedy. Resentment leaks all over the place like toxic waste. The emotions become so raw, they might as well be bathing wounds in salt. Hathaway manages to convey both victim and self-perpetuating martyr. Jonathan (Silence of the Lambs) Demme shoots it as if he were Robert Altman making a European neo-realist movie. Very skilfully, he escorts us into loose, improvised family scenes and slips away. The film in itself is a lovely document of a warts-and-all wedding. The immersion reminds you of the style of French director Abdel (Couscous) Kechiche. But just when you’re settled, the plot of writer Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sydney) demands histrionics and confrontation: screaming matches, car crashes and punch-ups. They are elegantly assembled, but put a strain on the film’s almost invisible structure. In just a few minutes’ screentime, Debra Winger gives Hathaway a run for her money as the distant mother and silent fount of dysfunction. She smiles disingenuously at her kids, offers caring platitudes, but, tellingly, keeps her distance.