About halfway through watching Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married I couldn't remember how it began. Literally, I plunged into my mind and came up with nothing, nothing save the scene where recovering addict Kym (played by Anne Hathaway) departs from the mental institution and some tiny clips of the opening credits. This is absolutely 100% not a bad thing; RGM may be a non-stop blitz of emotional turmoil, awkward family situations and beautiful music, but that is not to say things did not blend. If anything, as exhibited by my momentary amnesia about the beginning of the film, the film could have used a little less blending.
Essentially, the title of the film says it all; the entire film revolves around a week's worth of festivities in preparation for the wedding of Rachel (Kym's sister, played delicately by Rosmarie DeWitt) to Sidney (featuring TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe bringing real warmth to the role). More to the point, however, is that Kym has just been released from a rehab clinic, bringing a couple of truckloads worth of emotional baggage to add to the already mounting stress of the event. The film represents that stress particularly in the supporting cast of Kym and Rachel's father, Paul (an absolutely defining performance by Bill Irwin); Sidney's best man, Kieran (Mather Zickle); Rachel's initial maid of honor, Emma (Anisa George); and the sister's single mother, Abby (hey everyone! It's Debra Winger!)
From the moment we see Kym and Rachel existing in the same space, with Kym quickly making a stab at a joke about (of all funny topics available) an old eating disorder, we are lead to understand that this is a train wreck just dying to happen. Hathaway does some truly provocative emotive contorting with Kym, bringing some of her latent Princess Diaries spunk to such an emotional meltdown. The effect, particularly when combined with Rachel's coexisting urges to be patient and stubborn, creates a toxic air around almost any situation where the two are seen together. It is in these scenes where the movie pulls out its heavy artillery, with so much shouting and pouting that it's a wonder the whole things comes off as anything but shrill. Rather than stir the pot, Demme's camera observes these events with an amount of intimacy that blurs the line between viewing this as a creation and as something much more real.
Whether it's real or not makes no difference, because Demme's sense of pacing and assumed urge to place these events on their stunted emotional timeline gives the audience just enough time for that to not matter. Not once in my viewing did I feel as though this break-neck speed was too fast for the film; the difficulty for each scene in succession ramps up so violently that the speed is the ultimate helper. After a truly excruciating wedding rehearsal toast, a scream-filled confrontation, an accidental reminder of Kym's particularly troubled past (it's a bit of a spoiler, but it comes up quite a bit) that knocks Paul for a loop, a car accident, etc., etc., the feeling of wanting to know the what the next mode for the film was shouted down by the sheer thrill of it all.
Speaking of thrill, this film is fucking filled with it. Outside of the truly meaty Kym and Rachel scenes is an essential weaving of the other aspects of preparing such a monumental event as a wedding. There are numerous scenes of the combination of the two families (particularly one involving a dish-washing contest) that illicit a true and saccarine form of joy. There are several scenes of people simply performing, simply dancing, simply existing in the excitement for these two people. In a scene where Rachel reveals that she's pregnant (a scene that is actually shoved right in the middle of a massive fight between Rachel and Kym), Paul reacts by dervishly prancing and screaming, succumbing to a jubilant atmosphere that tends to exude from the pictures' more hopeful moments.
For all the great side characters, for all the momentous moments of music, of movement, of worry and excitement and union, however, any talk of this film would be a mistake if it did not give special note to Hathaway's performance. Kym, who exists in essentially a one-dimensional void, is a character that deserves to be shrill and unlikable, and would have been so in the hands of almost anyone else. With her telling thrown glances, her perfected exasperation, just the simple pain that is visible in her eyes throughout, Hathaway decides to fuck with an understanding of what she's supposed to be almost right alongside those almost blatantly damning moments. When Kym complains to Paul that Rachel cheated by bringing up her pregnancy in the middle of a heated fight, hatred doesn't pour in. Kym is hateable, but she is never evil. Many other films and actresses have sorely missed that distinction.
Rachel Getting Married does not exist among a genre of slice-of-life films; it ascends immediately to the top of that genre's highest mountain. It is a film of dominating, relentless energy, of a human vitality far beyond most films trying to present true family strife. I don't remember the beginning, but I also have come to believe that I don't have to, because forcing my way back works against a current this film builds, a current that every character gets swept up in until the very end of the film. This film deserves endless praise and Hathaway deserves an Oscar nomination not for a performance, not for a representation, but for a display so nuanced that it seems exhaustingly alive.
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