Little Sister Shotgun

[October 22nd, 2008]

Seems you can’t hold tony outdoor nuptials these days without a ferocious actress crashing through the assembled rows of dearly beloved and setting fire to the arbor. Last year it was Nicole Kidman as Margot at the Wedding, hijacking her sister Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Hamptons ceremony with venomous whispers and offhand insults. This fall, in Jonathan Demme’s ensemble picture Rachel Getting Married, it’s Anne Hathaway’s turn to play the nightmare bridesmaid. Her name is Kym, and she has generously interrupted her stay in rehab (pills, booze) to wreak havoc at her own sister’s Connecticut wedding. Lighting cigarettes indoors and out, Kym is 12 steps away from perfect narcissism, her hostile ego barely masked by self-deprecating sarcasm. “Everything is not about you, Kym,” the maid of honor complains. Oh, but it is: Even the ride home from the clinic is delayed when Kym turns down an offered soda with the explanation, “I prefer Pepsi…from the fountain.”

Twentysomething Kym could be Margot in training, and the two films have much in common—perhaps because movies about unhappy families are all unhappy in an upscale way. (In other words, not so unhappy that they can’t find time to hand-paint place cards for the reception tables.) While I prefer the ruthless illusion-puncturing of Noah Baumbach’s work, I suspect most people would rather attend Demme’s party. Kym’s displays aside, Rachel Getting Married is a placid, humane event, so resolutely good-natured that it breaks through even Kym’s defenses. Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is marrying Sidney, who is played (radiantly) by TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe; the singer appears to have invited every single one of his musical pals, including Fab 5 Freddy and Robyn Hitchcock, and they noodle away in all corners of the family home, their tunes blunting the harsh edges of the fights and recriminations. Race is no object here (everyone wears saris, though I remember seeing only one Indian, and she at the corner of the frame), and neither is class, or taste (everyone has money, and a healthy fondness for Neil Young).

Not very far under the appealing surface, this is frothy melodrama—there’s a dead child—but it is as carefully handled as the plastic plate that belonged to the missing family member. Thank goodness for Hathaway, whose bottomless need slices through the decorum. She’s always been a vibrant actress (especially good in Brokeback Mountain, where her rip-tootin’ grin momentarily parted the doomy clouds), but here’s she’s a ball of static electricity: not only tense, but the source of tension in others. Everyone in her family tries to be understanding, but she strains their tolerance to the breaking point—and, in the case of her mother (Debra Winger), snaps it completely.

It’s worth noting that her Kym is also a former model, and when she charges into a convenience store to obtain her fountain Pepsi, the clerk recognizes her from a televised driving rampage. Jonathan Demme has envisioned Rachel Getting Married as a kind of haven, a refuge from a sick, shallow celebrity-slaughtering culture to a place where kind hands wash a grimy soul. I don’t know if I believe in such a place, but I’m glad Demme does. “This is how it is in heaven,” says one of Sidney’s aunts in a toast. “Just like this. And this is our rehearsal.” Hearing the wedding supper clink its glasses in assent, I was reminded of a far wiser line in Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead, in which the narrator also dreams of paradise: “‘He will wipe the tears from all faces.’ It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.” Here, a progressive community stands in for God, and while Anne Hathaway’s own black eye is covered up with makeup, the movie daubs vigorously. Most of the audience will find themselves requiring hankies of their own.