Rachel Getting Married (Demme, 2008)

My main issue with Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008) is not even the film itself. Starring Anne Hathaway, and with a title that consists of a woman's name, and marriage one immediately expects a chick flick. This film is not that.

This trickery of audiences presumably to fill the seats of the multiplex with couples ('cause you know that's two seats, not one) is not too subtle, nor clever.
With a rather boring story, and not a single character to relate to Rachel subjects its audience to nearly two hours of excruciatingly painful moments. This is where I think Demme really accomplishes his goal.

In a scene of extraordinary awkwardness, Kym (Hathaway) gives a self-centered speech at the rehearsal dinner for her sister, Rachel's (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding. During the course of this speech, the viewer experiences a vast array of emotions, and by the end of it you are angry and painfully frustrated. To create such an intense response from an otherwise emotionally disconnected viewer is impressive. Other than re-painting the picture that this family is screwed up beyond belief though, I am not sure what it does for the film. But Demme's effort to piss off his audience did the trick.

I must mention the camera work. Having watched this film just days after watching Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003) I noticed quite a similar style. Demme uses this style (of smash zooms, fumbling hand-held movements, and focus hunting) to give a sense of realism, immediacy, and also use the fact that one of the characters spends the entire film wielding a camcorder. Rather than accomplish this, the cinematography seems to annoy the viewer more than anything (especially the couple in the multiplex expecting Anne Hathaway, as Rachel, to have a touching love life). Von Trier on the other hand uses almost the exact same style five years earlier for a very applicable reason. Dogville is extremely Brechtian, and this sort of cinematography constantly brings attention to the fact that you are, indeed, watching a film. Demmes application of much the same style (with in fact the same camera) is much more for the aesthetic style, than for any real reason.

As a movie to watch for fun, I do not think this is it. As a movie for something to think about, I also do not really think this is it. Rachel falls short in both respects, but attempts both in an interesting way. I also wonder if it is more than coincidence that Kym's haunting history of her dead brother is extremely reminiscent of the much more thought out 2007 film The Tracey Fragments, starring Ellen Page, by Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald.