Rachel Getting Married [DVD] [2009]

`Rachel Getting Married' is a film about a family planning a wedding (for Rachel!) when her sister, Kym, comes out of rehab for the nuptials and quickly ruffles some feathers. In fact this film is more about Kym than Rachel, despite the title. I have rarely seen Anne Hathaway act better than this and she plays the narcissistic, damaged and fragile Kym perfectly. There is a real bohemian, slightly hippy feel about the film, with the jazz music, freeform wedding vows and hand held camera style of direction. This feels like a home movie in places and is all the better for it. Some scenes (like parts of the rehearsal dinner and the dancing scene at the wedding) feel like they were partially improvised and the chemistry is potent whether they were scripted or not. In the trailer this was kind of portrayed as a kooky comedy, and whilst there are some funny moments, it is a lot darker than I was expecting and had some real emotional scenes. There is tragedy here mixed in with the joy of the wedding. This was a surprising film and one that slipped under the radar when first at the cinema and whilst it may not be a barrel of laughs, it is excellently acted, written and directed and makes for just under 2 hours enjoyable viewing.

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***CONTAINS AVERAGE SIZED SPOILERS***

A very self-indulgent movie that could really do with being edited down from 108 minutes to 80.

Many parts that don't warrant more than minimal attention are often handed many minutes to play out. The sprawling concert with many acts, the rehearsal speeches that go on and on, the dish washer loading scene is way too long and the film constantly comes to a halt for boring musical performances. If they edited the dancing, singing and music playing down to only what is needed to give a solid impression of it then the film would easily lose more than ten minutes.

The first 40 minutes are pretty boring and uninvolving. Then suddenly after the way overlong rehearsal speeches the movie becomes a really good melodrama as the sisters argue. The next 35 minutes are very compelling and dramatic (from the speech argument to the car crash) with lots happening. Then with the wedding itself, the last 30 minutes, it was back to the earlier boring, indulgent, mundane crap.

The plotless dancing went on so long I had to fast-forward at x6 speed to get it over with.

The problem with these quasi-documentary monster central character movies is that they try to be grounded in realism. Which restrains them and leads them into not making the character monstrous enough to justify a whole film about them (Greenberg [2010] and Margot At The Wedding [2007] suffer from this). The Kym character is interestingly messed up and monstrous enough to justify having a movie based on her.

The handheld bumpy camera work was okay, and not as contrived and as disjointedly edited as I expected.

A very flawed movie with too many self-indulgent passages (did the groom have to sing so much of that song at the alter?) but that central section made it worth watching. Overall it's below average with a rather slight and indifferent story by the end, but the good bits are properly good.

Margot At The Wedding, which I think is very, very similar, is probably slightly better than Rachel Getting Married by being more consistently watchable. This movie just really needs to be edited down as there is a much better film lost in all that boring bloat.

This film was so boring, pointless and self absorbed that I actually fast forwarded it from the half-way point in order to reach the end to avoid slipping into a coma. I didn't even think it worthy of a second screening so then gave it to an animal charity shop.

I am a keen film buff and I pride myself on never having walked out of a film at the cinema or abandoning a film watched at home. I always try and find something to focus my interest on but this film was utterly tedious. It was terrible to see Debra Winger in a film like this.

If you like Anne Hathaway (and I do) watch "The Devil Wears Prada" instead.