Rachel Getting Married (Anne Hathaway is not Rachel)

Welcome to my first review for Filmspurt! My motto: "Just like Bloodsport, only not at all." Feel free to lambast my grade five-level prose in the comments below. Your hatred keeps me alive.

I watched Rachel Getting Married last night at the local AMC 24 (at baby Times Square Toronto - Yonge & Dundas! Toronto is cold as fuck!). There I was, bulk barn snacks squirrelled away in my lady friend's purse and feeling extremely George Costanza-ish about the smuggling. As I waited for the lights to dim, I was looking forward to watching Anne Hathaway get married while trying to sabotage her best friend Kate Hudson's wedding. I guess I was mistaken.

The movie makes its intentions clear during the lo-fi opening credits played over the sounds of instruments being tuned and strummed while off-centre text announces the principals: "Hi. This is not Bride Wars and I hope no teenagers are watching because they will not like me." I felt like I was back at the Toronto International Film Festival watching a movie that would never get North American distribution. What I got was a gut-punch of a film packed with nuanced performances from a uniformly great cast.

Hathaway plays Kym, a woman leaving rehab for a few days to attend her titular sister's (Rosemarie Dewitt) wedding. Hathaway disappears into the role, making you forget her former Disney teen/early twenties-queen status. In the immortal words of Ol' Bill Shakespeare, "Holy shit this bitch can act!"

The script and close-up, swirling verite shooting style of the film leave no room for vanity or artifice on Hathaway's part, and she responds in turn with raw emotion and creates a character that you feel lives and breathes outside of the 114 minutes of the film itself. Plus, she shows her tits in one scene (kind of), and she got nominated for an Oscar! The Academy loves tits. Look at Kate Winslet and how many times she's been nominated for getting all nekkid! (That's a whole other post though. One that will require extensive.... research [smacks lips and chuckles ominously].)

The film follows the lead-up to the wedding and the occasion itself, mostly sticking around Kym and Rachel's father's house. Bill Irwin plays Paul, the women's doting father, with an energy and peculiar brand of expressiveness that leads to him scoring some of the best scenes and eliciting lots of empathy from the viewer. This guy is real good. Hey www.imdb.com, what's he done previously that I might recognize him from? Oh, Sesame Street you say? Holy fuck, get this bro some good character actor roles please!

Rosemarie DeWitt scores big as the sister that gets less attention than the fucked-up Kym, even on the day she's getting married. Debra Winger shows up as the semi-estranged mom that has disconnected long ago. She nails the coldness and pent-up feelings of her character remarkably well the few scenes she appears in. Her character's journey is really internal until a shocking third-act scene that leaps from the screen to slap you awake and make your stomach drop. The final scenes with her really speak to not only the film's subtle, layered style, but to the film maker's respect for the audience's intelligence.

Thankfully, the rest of the movie works similarly well. The music is organic in that it's played by onscreen musicians who are in the scene, instead of the score being piped out to only the viewing audience as a tool to evoke an emotional response. Tunde Adebimpe is understated and warm as Rachel's fiance Sydney, and he's in the band TV On The Radio (!). Mather Zickel shows real charisma as Sydney's best man, and injects some much-needed humour into the proceedings. Blah, blah, blah, subplots play out in unexpected fashion, the movie's real humanity is uplifting, blah, blah, just go see it.

Basically, I give it four out of five beaten-and-bruised, chain-smoking Anne Hathaways. I hoped you liked my review and, if not... well... it'll get better. I promise baby. I treat you this way because I love you. If you try to leave me I'll kill you.

Much Love,
Filmspurt

Blast off! On your face!

Hey y'all, I'd like to welcome you all to the premier post of Filmspurt! So to the three or four friends of mine that have been instructed to visit my new blog, I issue you a hearty, "Hi! Thanks for wasting your employer's time!"

To my employer who may have been told of this blog by one of my co-workers, "Hi *****. I'm totally writing this at home and not on work time. It's Sunday right now. I swear. Also, I've been nicking loonies from petty cash."

To my mother who may have stumbled upon this blog accidentally or been told of its existence by my brother, "Please stop reading now. I'm going to use bad words like fuck, shit, and Howie Mandel. You'd be much happier to pretend this doesn't exist and go back to Oprah.com."

Okay, all good? Still here? No? Fuck you then - get an attention span. For those that have read this far, buckle the fuck up because I'm about to ride films hard and hang em up wet. On your face.

Love,
Filmspurt