Rachel Get­ting Married

Anne Hath­away as Princess of Gen­ovia? Fine. Anne Hath­away as a put-upon assis­tant to a night­mare boss? Also fine. And we’ll even buy her as the unfor­tu­nate wife of a clos­et­ed gay cow­boy. But Anne Hath­away, as a chain-smok­ing drug addict, only a few black eye­lin­er smudges away from a pass­able Amy Wine­house impres­sion? Sure­ly we’re not talk­ing about the same whole­some Hath­away? Yes we are, and you bet­ter get over it quick, because implau­si­ble cast­ing aside, Rachel Get­ting Mar­ried is a rare and beau­ti­ful film which you’d be a fool to miss.

Hath­away plays Kym, the prodi­gal daugh­ter of her fam­i­ly, out of rehab just in time to attend her old­er sis­ter Rachel’s wed­ding. While she’s wel­comed, the part Kym played in a past fam­i­ly tragedy makes this a tense and emo­tion­al­ly fraught reunion.

In pen­sive tone and gen­tle pac­ing, Rachel Get­ting Mar­ried has more in com­mon with the late Ted Demme’s 1996 dra­ma Beau­ti­ful Girls, than any of the glossy thrillers which made his uncle Jonathan’s name. Screen­writer Jen­ny Lumet (daugh­ter of Sid­ney) prob­a­bly had a hand in that. Her script is bril­liant­ly obser­vant on fam­i­ly dynam­ics and how they force us to play roles – the patro­n­is­ing step-moth­er, the ignored old­er sis­ter, or in Kym’s case, the screw-up adolescent.

It’s Hathaway’s per­for­mance, how­ev­er, that real­ly invites empa­thy, both with Kym’s strug­gle to rede­fine her­self and her family’s efforts to for­give her. Kym is an intrigu­ing mix of inse­cu­ri­ties and affec­ta­tions. She’s always the only per­son in the room smok­ing and her sarky teen’s sense of humour is, for all its cyn­i­cism, odd­ly naïve. Giv­ing an impromp­tu speech at the pre-wed­ding din­ner she’s gauche and irri­tat­ing yet heart-break­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble. As each suc­ces­sive rehab gag goes down like a lead bal­loon, you want to slap her and hug her in a sin­gle movement.

Yet for all the uncom­fort­able anguish, Rachel Get­ting Mar­ried is also as warm and joy­ous as a real fam­i­ly wed­ding. The long, mean­der­ing scenes aren’t always in the ser­vice of the plot, but they include the audi­ence like invit­ed guests. And you’ll be very glad you were invit­ed because this is a friend­ly, unpre­ten­tious bash, with not a meringue dress in sight. The speech­es are fun­ny, the music is ace and the mood falls just the right side of sen­ti­men­tal mushiness.