Quickie: Rachel Getting Married

I thought I would quickly jot down some thoughts on this truly fine film by Jonathan Demme. It took me a while to catch up to it but I have to say it is one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year. Demme took what could have been a familiarly themed indie film on addiction and turned into a celebration of life and love. I absolutely loved how freed up Demme’s directing was under cinematographer’s Declan Quinn’s hand-held camera, in stark contrast to the very controlled style of his previous films, particularly The Silence of the Lambs where the camera is so rigid.

In some ways, it reminded me of Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, a film that needed similarly adept actors to pull off the immediacy of the drama. Anne Hathaway is magnificent at this and proves that the girl isn’t just a smiling, charming Julia Roberts knock-off, but is someone who can absolutely handle a three dimensional character — and doing it all improvisationally. It is a marvel how Demme captures fleeting looks and bravo to Hathaway for being observant enough to know when the camera needed something from her.

He doesn’t linger on her teary moments – they fly by as they do in real life. One feels as if they are sitting hovering there, a fly on the wall, observing the proceedings as they unfold. Unlike Woody Allen, Demme’s film celebrates life’s own improvisational beauty – it comes amid the tragedies, the crazy people and fuck ups; it comes amid chaos.

Both Rosemarie DeWitt and Hathaway are more than deserving of Oscar nominations and in a parrallel universe the film would be up for Best Pic and Director, along with screenplay. But it needs a leg up before that happens and perhaps it is too late in the year, perhaps not. Time will tell. Debra Winger, as good as she is, probably doesn’t have enough screen time to upstage DeWitt for a supporting nod, but nothing the actors branch does surprises me.