Rachel Getting Married

I was interesting in seeing just what the Anne Hathaway buzz was about, after The Princess Diaries you could imagine her getting stuck in the Disney Family movie genre, but I have to admit there was some inkling of a darker side every since that phone call scene in Brokeback Mountain, where the whole thing is shown with just her lower face closeup , talking on the phone, working that cigarette. It’s probably helped her street cred too that her real life beau went from being a prince charming to serving time – so much for happily-ever-after.

This movie could have very easily been soo movie-of-the-week, but it struck a nice modern balance. Major cudos to Jonathon Demi, he should get recognition for the handling of such delicate waters. Also, Debra Winger is phenomenal, I actually didn’t recognize her in the first couple of scenes, but she is superb in what can only be called a tour-de-force of suppressed emotion, denial, and WASP coldness. Even the cinemaphotography walks a fine line between being gritty home movie footage, but not so much so it's obnoxious or in the way.

This movie makes you fill in a lot of blanks, but in a good way, it doesn’t insult you with the standard obligatory scenes and neatly defined conflicts and resolutions. The family history unfolds over the movie, the tragedy of the family and what went into it. The father’s divorce, the mother’s distance, the role of music, laughter, and family, there’s all these story lines that are developed and brought together reinforcing the movie in nice subtle ways.

For instance at the end of the movie (spoiler alert) I’m totally convinced Debra Winger was herself either a drug addict or alcoholic, that she has this twisted belief about the role of children, and not so great as a mom – though there’s really no concrete proof, no neat confrontation, no begging for forgiveness or personal revelations. So much of this all happens in Anne Hathaway’s head, you can see her putting the pieces together, wanting to find answers, but realizing that there’s seldom nice tight little solutions to big problems. She wants to come to some resolution with her mom, but you realize it's probably just never going to happen. You see Kym finally ask her Mom, just why did she allow a known out-of-control actively using, constantly high drug addict to be babysitter for her young brother? The step mom has one of the best lines in the movie, during one of the numerous family conferences with hastily closed doors, she tells Kym basically everyone is responsible for how they perceive the world, how they choose to see things, and in the end responsible for their own happiness.

One thing I was very struck by though in this movie, is it’s depiction of America. Also, the contrast of the old American Dream vs. hopefully the new and hopeful one. You can put together what this family’s life was like before the son died. The professional distant Mom, the perfect New England Home, the rules and regulations, the denial of unhappiness, and drug abuse. It was the American Dream as unreachable ideal, as a hollow meaningless shell. Then look at what happens to the father after the divorce. It's telling that he ends up raising the children. His life is music, he surrounds himself by talented musicians and celebration, he remarries a loving accepting emotionally available black woman. The wedding itself is this sort of utopian multi-cultural version of America. A mixed marriage with two very different families, a celebration of cultures (of all sorts), music, and lifestyles. There's something very hopeful about a white female doctor and her talented black musican husband cutting into bright blue hindu elephant god wedding cake (with the whole cast ceremoniously taking part).

A large part of Kym’s conflict is this transition, from emotional denial and shut-down to embracing one’s emotions and learning to live within this big messy world. For a big part of the movie you can see her future as a toss-up, she could go either way. The main conflict isn’t whether she confronts her mom, or patches things up with her sister, it’s how she handles her own past and history, and decides to move forward.