Rachel Getting Married is one of the few Oscar nominated flicks I was at all interested in seeing. If there's anything that floats my boat as much as dark comedy, its dysfunctional families. Anne Hathaway plays recovering addict and sister to the bride as she reaquaints herself with her family in the closing days before the wedding. It's definitely an unmitigated view of a family during get togethers. The handheld camera and the choice of there being only music within the narrative makes you feel like it's a documentary. There are moments that make you cringe, make you laugh, and make you pause to take a breath. All of it works.
I wasn't truly aware of Anne Hathaway's acting range outside of romantic/tween dramedies until this film. Turning a 180 from the roles she's usually known for, she doesn't waste any time getting into character. The same can be said for the rest of the cast, as the whole thing feels again like a documentary. Some of the moments I found so akin to moments at family gatherings of my own that I felt a little queezy reliving them. You can watch these people and tell that there is a history with all of them. They look and act like a genuine family.
This is also the latest of several films I've seen now opting for the handheld look. It seems to have become something like compositional risk to use it on projects these days. Not everyone does it well, but I think considering the look they were going for it works in this film. I will have to say that it's gonna get harder and harder for me to like it as more and more films use this "technique."
The part about this movie that strikes me closest to home is how close they come to the day to day operations of a family during big events. Everyone I know has a relative for the ones you see in this film and the interactions between all of them is so flawless you can feel like it's about your own family. This all being said, I may have an extremely screwed up family and friends so it may not strike many people the way it does me. For someone that does come from this sort of background, this flick serves as an erie reflection of our lives with our families.
The Los Angeles Times reported 63 percent of American households were dysfunctional. I'm not surprised by the figure. I'm also very glad that they're becoming much more represented in today's cinema. It can get overdone at the risk of ruining the genre. Not all of the projects covering the subject do well with it. Rachel Getting Married does it well. It brings all the skeletons out of the closet but can still maintain that even the more screwed up families can come together when the shit hits the fan. They won't do it perfectly, and there's always casualties, but sunshine rainbow endings are overrated anyway.