Rachel Getting Married

“Rachel Getting Married” has the kind of insight and truthfulness that Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach wish they could communicate regarding family dysfunction. “The Royal Tenenbaums” was cartoony, “Margot at the Wedding” felt too alienated from reality, and “The Squid and the Whale” while great, has a lesser degree of the alienation.

“Rachel Getting Married” stars Anne Hathaway as a recovering addict with mountains of pains, regrets, and destruction from her addictive life. As the film progresses, stories come out, and the sequences build upon themselves revealing history and secrets. The movie is a handheld cameraman’s fantasy of recording dysfunction for 2 straight hours.

The movie plays its characters and themes spot on. I have arrived at a point where a film has to really do something right to convince me regarding its portrayal of dysfunction and/or therapy. Rachel gets it right. The AA scenes are real and convincing. Hathaway’s character is written well and acted realistically. The family system is also portrayed with textbook predictability regarding addiction: Essentially, when one person is an addict in a family, the family often scapegoats the individual and makes them the family whipping post. Rather than individual members taking responsibility for their actions, they focus on the addict. Rather than being vulnerable, they make it the addicts fault. Rather than dealing with the way we hurt one another in a family, it’s easier to negatively focus on the more overt addict. Everyone plays a role and is still responsible.

When Rachel’s sister comes home for Rachel’s wedding, the writer and director give a solid picture of a family functioning on dysfunction until the addict comes home and blows it apart. These scenes are played out with tension not unlike a good thriller – what will she say? How will she embarrass herself? It’s to the films credit that things are portrayed the way they are that this type of tension exists. It probably doesn't hurt that this was directed by Jonathan "Silence of the Lambs" Demme either.

Each family member plays typical roles: The Father is a passive man who refuses to be real, insisting instead on trying to make people laugh and draw attention away from the real issues. The biological Mother is cold and withdrawn, parenting her adult daughter like a child. The self centered, narcissistic addict who – in spite of it being her sisters wedding – insists on taking grand opportunities to draw attention to herself. I could go on and on.

“Rachel Getting Married” had me worried with Anne Hathaway in the lead. In fact, when the movie opens with a shot of her face in her scenester haircut, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud – this is Ms. “Princess Diaries” Anne Hathaway trying to be tough. However, 5 minutes in I lost track of her goodie-goodie roles and was able to focus on her character. She really deserved her Oscar nomination.

While “Rachel Getting Married” plays through to its burnt out, exhausting finish, I couldn’t help but think about the purpose of film in general. Some of us want to be entertained, some of us want to be enlightened, some of us want to be challenged, some want all 3. The movie will do more for those who find their entertainment in the challenges the movie presents about the family system. However, don’t go in expecting a fun family drama that resolves itself by the end. While some may feel the film tries too hard to communicate pain and brokenness, I actually felt the film dealt with it so well. The reality is this – we are all at some level in pain or broken. None of our families is perfect. But we are still family. As one family member poignantly states in a toast to the group, “this is what heaven will be like.”

Indeed.