(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fl.yimg.com%2Fimg.movies.yahoo.com%2Fymv%2Fus%2Fimg%2Fhv%2Fphoto%2Fmovie_pix%2Fsony_pictures_classics%2Frachel_getting_married%2Frachelgettingmarried_titleposter.jpg&hash=c48c24297f3dbefc6ce1ed843b47cf7de53067aa)
Trailer here. (http://movies.yahoo.com/premieres/9082299/standardformat/)
Release Date: October 3rd, 2008 (limited)
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Anna Deavere Smith, Debra Winger
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Premise: When Kym returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel, she brings a long history of personal crisis and family conflict along with her.
Okay....I'll be the first to say it:
lame.
I haven't seen the trailer for this, but the movie was REALLY GOOD. The script, the direction, the acting all work together perfectly to hit just the right notes. The performances from the cast and especially Rosemarie DeWitt and Anne Hathaway were fantastic. You spend the first half of the film trying to put together who's who as it unfolds naturally. The film is unpredictable and steers away from cliche while revealing more about the characters. This was a really nice surprise.
it caught my eye that the onion gave this an A but I haven't had a chance to check it out yet
It's worth it for Demme's directing and Hathaway's acting.
Kidman and Urban wandered into the same screening of this film as me. They decide to share a row with my my wife and I, planting their carefully groomed asses only a few seats away. I imagine we smelled of lower-middle class film geeks so they understandably moved down a row, sharing an ice cream bar (adorable, huh?).
About twenty minutes into the movie they bailed. Kidman leaned over to her husband just before their departure and, according to my wife, whispered, "This is gonna be really depressing". I definitely heard her whisper something but couldn't confirm exactly what.
We have several theories for this behavior. I'll list them from least to most likely:
A) Kidman, being a vapid starlet, simply became bored and restless; preoccupied by all of the much more fashionable things she could be doing at that moment.
B) She was taking her husband's feelings into consideration since he apparently had a stint in rehab (this comes from my wife via tabloids and I'm too lazy to research it myself).
C) She was depressed by the fact that this film was on it's way to being what Margot at the Wedding should have been.
All comparisons aside, this is a great fucking movie. One of the year's best so far.
Even though handheld has become cliche at this point, it works beautifully when it lends itself to the material. Unsettling but never intrusive, the cinematography actually succeeds at making you feel like another member of the wedding party: Tense, unable to look away or leave the room, even though (like Kidman) you occasionally feel the urge. Hathaway disappears into the role, finding that addict's narcissism without taking it over the top. Everything about this film felt urgent and completely honest.
haha.
i really liked this film, although my boyfriend and i both agreed that there were a few parts (especially some of the wedding/dancing sequences) that could have been pared down.
This was an unexpected hit and worth every penny. I was completely blown away by Debra winger and Anne hathaway...Some scenes were just excruciating to watch and it pained me to endure some moments...but man, good stuff.
Quote from: imawombat on November 11, 2008, 09:52:57 PM
there were a few parts (especially some of the wedding/dancing sequences) that could have been pared down.
I don't necessarily agree here. I feel like they were long enough to help the audience smoothly transition out of the dark, angry family moments. To really provide the feel that they as a family could put on a happy face for everyone else, forget all their bullshit and enjoy themselves until they're all just down to the immediate family again and prone to fight.
There were some wonderfully dynamic relationships caught in this film rarely seen in other films, and for that I am happy.
Um I guess I'll say that I didn't like this.
I mean, I guess if you married the guy from TV on the Radio, you'd have quite the affair, but otherwise this movie dares you to trump its diversity, and I don't buy it. Seriously, how many cultures are represented here....in fucking Connecticut? How many amazing musicians flocked to this harmonious melting pot carnival? I guess I don't buy it because Rachel is pretty fucking boring. How'd she snag this dude anyway?
Kym is someone that I would probably talk to for about five seconds and then never talk to again. So seeing her baggage for two hours, didn't enjoy it.
I think the film's smart, it's constructed well, and there's a LOT of truth in the writing -- the father/Kym relationship and his neglecting Rachel, Kym's destructive behavior. But then, there's a lot to not enjoy here. The end of the dishwasher scene (which was a little too mundane to become what it was) was so apparent from the beginning. There was too much fun being had. The final hug, there was too much love there. Too much short term memory.
And I guess I really didn't like it because Kym's psychology is so transparent. It's all so easily mapped out. For being dramatic as fuck, this wasn't terribly complex, and I think that's a weakness. The aforementioned father/Kym relationship is sort of where the complexity begins and ends, and it's barely tapped into. The movie's only complexity is its strange multiculturalism. I realllllly didn't get it. The saris....who embodies the Indian culture represented here? I just don't know. If the idea is that new experiences can provide healing, Kym doesn't really seem to be in opposition to any of the culture in the film, so what's the point?
I'm surprised there isn't an iota of discussion on here aside from some vague praise.
Quote from: Gamblour. on December 04, 2008, 12:46:54 PM
Um I guess I'll say that I didn't like this.
I mean, I guess if you married the guy from TV on the Radio, you'd have quite the affair, but otherwise this movie dares you to trump its diversity, and I don't buy it. Seriously, how many cultures are represented here....in fucking Connecticut? How many amazing musicians flocked to this harmonious melting pot carnival? I guess I don't buy it because Rachel is pretty fucking boring. How'd she snag this dude anyway?
Kym is someone that I would probably talk to for about five seconds and then never talk to again. So seeing her baggage for two hours, didn't enjoy it.
I think the film's smart, it's constructed well, and there's a LOT of truth in the writing -- the father/Kym relationship and his neglecting Rachel, Kym's destructive behavior. But then, there's a lot to not enjoy here. The end of the dishwasher scene (which was a little too mundane to become what it was) was so apparent from the beginning. There was too much fun being had. The final hug, there was too much love there. Too much short term memory.
And I guess I really didn't like it because Kym's psychology is so transparent. It's all so easily mapped out. For being dramatic as fuck, this wasn't terribly complex, and I think that's a weakness. The aforementioned father/Kym relationship is sort of where the complexity begins and ends, and it's barely tapped into. The movie's only complexity is its strange multiculturalism. I realllllly didn't get it. The saris....who embodies the Indian culture represented here? I just don't know. If the idea is that new experiences can provide healing, Kym doesn't really seem to be in opposition to any of the culture in the film, so what's the point?
I'm surprised there isn't an iota of discussion on here aside from some vague praise.
I might just be transposing my own feelings onto this movie but I felt like maybe there was a hint of condescension on Demme or Lumet's part about the level in which upper class whites can try and indentify with other cultures. If there was an acting award for smiling and laughing I'm pretty sure the singer from TVOTR has got it on lockdown.
comparisons to altman are too apt not to make, though it comes by way of cassavetes-- yes, for the hand-crafted aesthetic but also the emotional toughness--shot by anthony dod mantle in the 90s. as for the multiculturalism, i'm not really sure how it "dares you to trump its diversity" but i felt that it's an act of sublimation on the part of the family, the donning of other cultures' celebratory traditions as a pretense of happiness. i didn't think it was just kym's baggage for its running time so much as an astute observation of filial alienation and the act of figuring your shit out when you've fucked up, at once wrenching and funny, always resonant. the most affirming movie going experience i had this year, which for now is reason enough to deem it the best. tunde adebimpe sings neil young! loved this movie.
Here's what I meant by that. The film showcases an extreme diversity in the cultures represented, especially in the case of the saris, and for this I feel like the film was very unconvincing and being worldly for the sake of it. I found it very disingenuous, the reasons being that Rachel is just some boring white girl from Connecticut and I was given no reason to believe that she could have entered a world this diverse, and if she is capable of this, we don't know enough about her.
However, by feeling this way, I also have to consider the fact that this probably is someone's wedding out there somewhere, maybe Rachel's maybe not, but do my own presumptions about the world make me feel like this was a complete fucking fairy tale? And are they wrong? For that, the movie makes me feel alienated, as if this display is diversity is both true and unsurpassable. Hence, you couldn't trump it even if you tried.
connecticut is a pretty diverse place.
also, you're letting the diversity bothering you that much? boring white people can't have friends from other cultures? there are some places that aren't as insulated as you might think - especially in savvy privileged families. but that's real life.
And that's sort of what I meant in that second paragraph. I guess the reason it bothers me is because things aren't like that in Atlanta. This city, this state are both ridiculously segregated, and I guess everything must be hunky dory in Connecticut. It's not that I don't like it because it's a positive portrayal. I kept thinking how a wedding like that would never happen here. So yeah, it bothered me.
And then the whole Kym character, knowing someone like that growing up, the hug at the end was too easy. The film was too optimistic when it needed to be honest.
I know what you mean by segregation, but wealthy privileged people are quite savvy these days. everyone's going to india and taking up causes in africa and road tripping through central america. things are obviously not rosy in CT, and the two times I partied in ATL I've seen a fun enough mix and thought about moving there. socio-economic segregation is getting worse, but people are getting hipper too.
oh and by the way. this is my favorite of the year. so many beautiful scenes. it's like the celebration without the plot or in america that's dysfunctional.
I have a very hard time connecting with rich upper class white people. Everything about this movie is so great except the problems that the rich white people were having. I found myself chuckling anytime Kym went off on one of her self-indulgent rants or anytime Rachel pulled the, "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" card. It was just silly. It's like rich white people make themselves have problems because their lives are too easy. Their big problems are never real problems -- they're just problems they created for themselves on purpose and made bigger because their life is too easy and boring. Driving off in your Prius and then realizing you grabbed the wrong latte at Starbucks can really ruin your day if that's the biggest dilemma you're facing in your life.
Jenny Lumet probably lives in some sort of rich white people bubble where problems like the ones she wrote about in this screenplay are common occurrence. When you don't have to worry about money or paying your bills on time, the big problems you have in your life are usually the type that can be cured with a prescription for some weird experimental drug that's only covered by the best health insurance which she and the people in this movie most likely have. Normal people don't have problems like attempting to eat healthy or get to spin class on time. That's not a problem to a normal person. Rich white people start smoking because they want to be rebellious. Normal people start smoking because it's a product of their environment.
Kym was annoying as fuck. I hate girls like her. Her problems weren't even that interesting. The only reason they were interesting is because they were happening to a rich white girl. At least in Traffic, when the rich white girl was going through her rebellious drug phase she ended up ass naked on a pimps bed sans sheets blazed out of her mind. Kym's never been pimped out for $20 so she could support her drug habit. Why? Because she's a phony. All her problems could be attributed to a subconscious wanting of attention.
The reason I enjoyed this movie so much has everything to do with Demme's direction and Tim Squyres editing. Everything is very ambient and flows very well. The whole film felt alive. If Demme didn't film it handheld style, it wouldn't have had the certain charm that it has. I didn't notice any of his patented close-ups, which was a bummer, but I liked the style and he executed it brilliantly. I haven't read the script, but I want to because I want to know if the screenplay comes off as free flowing as Demme's eventual directing does.
All the acting is top-knotch. Anne Hathaway goes overboard a bit, but with the character it's to be expected.
Overall, I found it highly enjoyable. Rich white people with stupid rich white people problems always get on my nerves and will continue to get on my nerves until I get some money of my own, but Demme's direction makes this a really spectacular experience. 8.3/10.
Quote from: Stefen on March 02, 2009, 11:23:58 AM
I have a very hard time connecting with rich upper class white people. Everything about this movie is so great except the problems that the rich white people were having. I found myself chuckling anytime Kym went off on one of her self-indulgent rants or anytime Rachel pulled the, "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" card. It was just silly. It's like rich white people make themselves have problems because their lives are too easy. Their big problems are never real problems -- they're just problems they created for themselves on purpose and made bigger because their life is too easy and boring. Driving off in your Prius and then realizing you grabbed the wrong latte at Starbucks can really ruin your day if that's the biggest dilemma you're facing in your life.
Jenny Lumet probably lives in some sort of rich white people bubble where problems like the ones she wrote about in this screenplay are common occurrence. When you don't have to worry about money or paying your bills on time, the big problems you have in your life are usually the type that can be cured with a prescription for some weird experimental drug that's only covered by the best health insurance which she and the people in this movie most likely have. Normal people don't have problems like attempting to eat healthy or get to spin class on time. That's not a problem to a normal person. Rich white people start smoking because they want to be rebellious. Normal people start smoking because it's a product of their environment.
Kym was annoying as fuck. I hate girls like her. Her problems weren't even that interesting. The only reason they were interesting is because they were happening to a rich white girl. At least in Traffic, when the rich white girl was going through her rebellious drug phase she ended up ass naked on a pimps bed sans sheets blazed out of her mind. Kym's never been pimped out for $20 so she could support her drug habit. Why? Because she's a phony. All her problems could be attributed to a subconscious wanting of attention.
The reason I enjoyed this movie so much has everything to do with Demme's direction and Tim Squyres editing. Everything is very ambient and flows very well. The whole film felt alive. If Demme didn't film it handheld style, it wouldn't have had the certain charm that it has. I didn't notice any of his patented close-ups, which was a bummer, but I liked the style and he executed it brilliantly. I haven't read the script, but I want to because I want to know if the screenplay comes off as free flowing as Demme's eventual directing does.
All the acting is top-knotch. Anne Hathaway goes overboard a bit, but with the character it's to be expected.
Overall, I found it highly enjoyable. Rich white people with stupid rich white people problems always get on my nerves and will continue to get on my nerves until I get some money of my own, but Demme's direction makes this a really spectacular experience. 8.3/10.
Jesus, Stefen, did rich white people kill your entire family or something? This film isn't trying to make you feel sorry for a group known as "rich white people." Can't a film just be about its characters without having representation of their entire socio-economic class thrust upon them?
how is losing a family member a rich white people problem?
It's not like the kid died of leukemia.
Hahah so apparently Demme wanted to cast PTA for the role of Sydney! Check out this bit from a somewhat poorly transcribed Demme interview:
All the other elements: the Indian wedding, the Brazilian dancers...
Well, that's Jenny Lumet's fault. But, the thing I wanted to say there just in conclusion, that point that was Tunde Adebimpe who plays Sidney was the second person that I offered the part to. The first person I offered the part two was the American filmmaker who should be in movies because he's so good looking and fabulous. And that is Paul Thomas Anderson. He came in and read the script at a table read with us. He was working on finishing up There Will Be Blood in New York. He was wonderful. And he passed the likeability test in a big way. I wanted, again because Jenny writes characters without regard to making them likable, and rooting interests and stuff. She tries to makes them real and fascinating and complicated.??We needed not only terrific actors, but I thought people in the audience would like despite their vagaries. So, Paul was adorable as Sidney. I offered him the part and he said, "Jonathan, you've got to be kidding me. It was fun to do the table read, but a) I'm shy, and b) I've got this little movie I'm trying to finish and stuff.?? So, our casting directors I asked them to please, please, our whole movie was cast from New York. And I asked our casting directors to bring in our most gifted, likable actors.
(Full interview here (http://blog.spout.com/2008/09/17/jonathan-demme-interview-rachel-getting-married-toronto-2008/))
I wish they taped that table read!
Oh and this might be my favorite movie from last year.
I never got the impression from seeing clips of him that he was shy...
'Rachel Getting Married' Director Jonathan Demme On Not Making His Movie 'Too Entertaining''
Source: MTV
A psychotic killer who fashions suits out of human flesh. Traumatized war vets programmed to execute nefarious government conspiracies. A man slowly, painfully dying of AIDS. From "The Silence of the Lambs" to "The Manchurian Candidate" to "Philadelphia," Jonathan Demme has made a career out of making the grim or unpleasant somehow entertaining. So when he started mapping out the approach to his latest film, about a recovering drug addict who reunites with her traumatized family before her sister's wedding, the Oscar-winning director had a slightly odd operating principle.
"One of the challenges was not trying to make it too entertaining," Demme told MTV News about last fall's indie darling "Rachel Getting Married."
Nor did he want any aspect of the movie to be appear too flawless to the audience. In fact, Demme went so far as to scrap the first acting-intensive scene he shot, an important moment in which Kym (Anne Hathaway) first comes home from rehab to see her soon-to-marry sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). "It was perfect," he said. "And I thought to myself, 'Hmm, that was too easy.' It felt too much like a proper, polished movie. In a rare moment of direction, I encouraged the young women to forget they were in a movie with clever dialogue and asked them to live it instead. And man, in the next take they went at each other. That's when I started to see the movie come alive."
Of course, Demme must have done something right through his idiosyncratic process, because the film made the top ten lists of two dozen critics and scored an Academy Award nomination for Hathaway. Not bad work for a director who had all but abandoned fictional films after his disappointing 2004 remake of "Manchurian Candidate."
But he decided to give fiction another shot after reading Jenny Lumet's "Rachel" script. "I'm a grown, grizzled veteran and I'm sitting there crying," Demme said. "I just thought, 'I gotta do this.'"
The concept he hit upon to make the film the right way was to do no rehearsal with the actors and to pretend they were all making a documentary. He also spent a year tweaking the script with Lumet. "The work we did had to do with me requesting to weed out some of Jenny's zanier humor that I just didn't know how to do," Demme said.
The finished film is a subtle, brutal examination of one family's simmering tensions, its neediness and compromises, its anger and awkwardness. Life for the family is one fraught with historical traps each member must tiptoe around, lest they all become mired in endless, howling arguments or violent, self-destructive behavior. Put another way, even at its more melodramatic moments, "Rachel" is one of the most honest and devastating explorations of the modern family in recent memory.
Quote from: Ravi on March 04, 2009, 01:20:50 AM
Quote from: Stefen on March 02, 2009, 11:23:58 AM
I have a very hard time connecting with rich upper class white people. Everything about this movie is so great except the problems that the rich white people were having. I found myself chuckling anytime Kym went off on one of her self-indulgent rants or anytime Rachel pulled the, "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" card. It was just silly. It's like rich white people make themselves have problems because their lives are too easy. Their big problems are never real problems -- they're just problems they created for themselves on purpose and made bigger because their life is too easy and boring. Driving off in your Prius and then realizing you grabbed the wrong latte at Starbucks can really ruin your day if that's the biggest dilemma you're facing in your life.
Jenny Lumet probably lives in some sort of rich white people bubble where problems like the ones she wrote about in this screenplay are common occurrence. When you don't have to worry about money or paying your bills on time, the big problems you have in your life are usually the type that can be cured with a prescription for some weird experimental drug that's only covered by the best health insurance which she and the people in this movie most likely have. Normal people don't have problems like attempting to eat healthy or get to spin class on time. That's not a problem to a normal person. Rich white people start smoking because they want to be rebellious. Normal people start smoking because it's a product of their environment.
Kym was annoying as fuck. I hate girls like her. Her problems weren't even that interesting. The only reason they were interesting is because they were happening to a rich white girl. At least in Traffic, when the rich white girl was going through her rebellious drug phase she ended up ass naked on a pimps bed sans sheets blazed out of her mind. Kym's never been pimped out for $20 so she could support her drug habit. Why? Because she's a phony. All her problems could be attributed to a subconscious wanting of attention.
The reason I enjoyed this movie so much has everything to do with Demme's direction and Tim Squyres editing. Everything is very ambient and flows very well. The whole film felt alive. If Demme didn't film it handheld style, it wouldn't have had the certain charm that it has. I didn't notice any of his patented close-ups, which was a bummer, but I liked the style and he executed it brilliantly. I haven't read the script, but I want to because I want to know if the screenplay comes off as free flowing as Demme's eventual directing does.
All the acting is top-knotch. Anne Hathaway goes overboard a bit, but with the character it's to be expected.
Overall, I found it highly enjoyable. Rich white people with stupid rich white people problems always get on my nerves and will continue to get on my nerves until I get some money of my own, but Demme's direction makes this a really spectacular experience. 8.3/10.
Jesus, Stefen, did rich white people kill your entire family or something? This film isn't trying to make you feel sorry for a group known as "rich white people." Can't a film just be about its characters without having representation of their entire socio-economic class thrust upon them?
so, basically, stefen, most woody allen films are hard to relate to?
anyway. the multiculturalism was a little weird at the beginning, but then you realize the boyfriend is a musician so really, that pretty much explains it all.
anne hathaway is awesome. it became almost uncomfortable to listen to her, she's just one true fuck up in this film. when she akes the toast i found myself literally looking away from the screen. loved the film in general, it was a great surprise.
Watched the DVD this weekend. Loved this film. Got to be honest, been a while since I saw something in this style. I have been watching way too many mainstream movies over the past year. The dishwasher scene was fantastic.