Rachel Getting Married
The ghost of film director Robert Altman (who died two years before) hovers over Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, and not necessarily in a good way. Altman’s own partly improvised, ensemble-based movies were hit and miss; this Altman-inspired movie feels like a hit and a miss.
Using a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of director Sidney Lumet and grandmother of Lena Horne), Demme casts Anne Hathaway to great effect as the volatile, depressed yet fierce Kym Buchman, released from drug rehab for several days in order to attend the wedding of her sister, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Kym is a tightly sprung coil who, it’s felt, can explode at any time and particularly at the wrong time. One of her first serious roles, Anne Hathaway’s Kym is a searing presence and Hathaway was nominated for an Academy Award for the role.
Bill Irwin, who I mainly know as a vaudeville performer and silent film comedy enthusiast, plays the sister’s heartfelt father, Paul, a bundle of nervousness and sadness only partially hidden in a mask of optimism. Their somewhat cold mother, Abby (Paul’s ex-wife) is sharply distilled by Debra Winger, so nice to see on the screen again, and in such a strong role. It gradually becomes clear the family still suffers from a long-ago tragic event. The wounds aren’t far from the surface.
The wedding is multicultural and inclusively celebratory. Rachel’s fiance, Sidney, is a music producer played by Tunde Adebimpe, the lead singer of the band TV On the Radio. Demme lets cinematographer Declan Quinn roam around Paul’s spacious house and grounds, using free-flowing camera techniques which, combined with improvisation and a large assortment of musicians practicing for the wedding, creates a documentary feeling.
Rachel Getting Married would be a better and more cohesive film had it remained focused on Kym and her immediate family. The hard-to-watch scenes of their conflict reminded me of Ingmar Bergman’s emotional and philosophical honesty (and also of Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 Dogme 95 film, The Celebration). This story is frequently interrupted (sometimes literally) by annoying, incessant music-making and dancing, a little of which goes a long way, especially when boogied by characters we haven’t even been introduced to and don’t care about. At one point Anne Hathaway the actress complained about the constant noise-making and melodic noodling. Her complaint was kept in the film, in character. Sidney’s wedding nuptials include the complete recitation of the lyrics of a Neil Young song, a scene (regardless of what you may think of Neil Young) as embarrassing, long and cringe-worthy as you can imagine.
After a time the music and dancing and flashy clothes and excess takes on the opposite of the music-as-life-affirmation vibe Demme intends and instead becomes oppressive, abrasive and unbelievable. The goodwill and interest Demme built up in the family drama scenes dissipates, and a good movie becomes deeply flawed. There are moments of tenderness, as when Rachel bathes the returned and quiet Kym before the rehearsal, and a scene wherein Rachel and Kym are both surprised and betrayed by their mother’s aloofness.
Jonathan Demme made, in 1984, what is perhaps the greatest rock concert film, Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads’ music in that film was positively life-affirming. Demme’s love for musical performance was legendary and it’s not surprising a film by him about a wedding would be permeated by it. Ultimately, though, I wanted Rachel Getting Married to be more Autumn Sonata and less The Last Waltz.—Michael R. Neno, 2019 Feb 07