Rachel Getting Married

Anne Hathaway is Kym, Rachel’s sister, who gets a weekend pass from rehab for the titular wedding, and her performance here is revelatory, furthering her artistic growth from Havoc and Brokeback Mountain. To dwell on Hathaway, though, is to miss what makes Rachel magnificent. From start to finish, foreground to background, audio to visuals, it’s a holistic experience: funny, sad, exuberant, wrenching, raw, absorbing and real. Audience members aren’t flies on the wall; we’re guests for the weekend, living through the family drama that unfolds before our eyes. Of course, the prodigal-problem-child story has been told before. Not like this—not the way Jenny Lumet (Sydney’s daughter) tells it, with characters as fully formed and transcending cliché, and not the way Jonathan Demme marries Lumet’s screenplay with subtle filmmaking. He’s made a home movie in all senses of the word. His actors don’t act; they become. Pageant Theatre. Rated R