Daily Plastic: Rachel Getting Married

Movie	Our Take	Other Takes
Rachel Getting Married Trailer . IMDB	The magic belongs in part to Demme's bold structure and in part to Anne Hathaway's fierce and quivering performance. When her face draws tight with tears, I sink an inch into my seat. Robert Davis Paste Magazine	Bringing together an African-American musician family and a white professional household, the film is perhaps a little too meticulous about making sure every race is represented ... but the genuine good feelings that flow between the guests seem mostly unforced and, serving as a corrective to the affected miserabilism promised by the film's opening sequences, are never unwelcome. Andrew Schenker Slant Magazine Showing depths she's never come close to suggesting before, Anne Hathaway plays an addict newly sprung from rehab and headed to suburban Connecticut for sister Rosemarie DeWitt's wedding weekend.... Based on that description, Rachel Getting Married sounds like a joyless dirge, but it's actually far from it, and a lot of that is owed to the way Demme harnesses the genuine love and good feeling that buoys the occasion. Scott Tobias Onion AV Club Demme is a genial filmmaker, light on his feet, forever taken aback — even embarrassed — by the way in which his stories drift toward pain.... [I]t’s there in the mood swings of Rachel Getting Married — a minor work, but so menaced by distress that the characters take every opportunity to dance the dark away. Anthony Lane The New Yorker The rules say that critics don't discuss movies after screenings. After I saw Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married for the second time, however, a friend asked: "Wouldn't you love to attend a wedding like that?" In a way, I felt I had. Yes, I began to feel absorbed in the experience. A few movies can do that, can slip you out of your mind and into theirs. Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Dissents? ... fatuous.... Constantly teetering on the brink of hysteria and frequently tipping over into it... Scott Foundas Village Voice Anne Hathaway's complicated performance buys Rachel Getting Married a lot of indulgence. Her normally pristine look is roughed up, and her voice — low and flat — becomes a distinct vehicle for conveying cynicism, disappointment and self-disgust. At 25, Hathaway's apprenticeship is over and soon she'll be making much better movies than this one. Mick LaSalle San Francisco Chronicle Is it a critique of bobos? [T]o make the argument that the film’s melting pot was somehow inauthentic, and/or tacked on by Demme to reflect his own sensibilities rather than those of his characters, was to fundamentally misunderstand the film. Karina Longworth SpoutBlog Even if it were no good as a family-relationship drama, though it is, it REALLY is … Rachel Getting Married works as a completely-unintentional parody of Connecticut Upper-Crust Secular Multicultural Awareness. Victor Morton Rightwing Film Geek