Premise: Kym (Anne Hathaway) leaves rehab to attend her sister Rachel's (Rosemaire DeWitt) wedding to Sidney (TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe) at their father's (Bill Irwin) estate.This movie might be the hardest I have ever chosen to review because it feels like the hardest to explain. I saw it without reading any reviews, and I read three in preparation to write to you now. I'm still unsure that I have a handle the movie.
The lyrical way Declan Quinn's camera follows characters around the house, never afraid to cut them out of the frame, lends an authenticity to the movie that's difficult to transcribe. It's as real as any movie in recent memory and more so, for Jonathan Demme delicately picks up Jenny Lumet's screenplay and weaves colour, texture, and life into her carefully selected words. It catches the temporary suspension that many would like to go with a wedding and acknowledges how it only seems to underline longstanding tension and long held resentments.
There's a decade old tragedy at the centre for these characters, and everything that happens seems to grow out of it, pushing the characters forward while pulling them back in. DeWitt, as Rachel, struggles to find a place for herself that isn't defined in contrast to her junkie sister, and she creates a mix of compassion, anger, and forbearance. The movie isn't "about" how difficult it must be for Rachel to have a sister like Kym, and DeWitt's nuanced performance never suggests it should be.
There's a wonderful matter of fact/this is life quality to the movie gives the sense that, in fact, there's nothing it "should" be. It just is. Hathaway, in a difficult role that would be easy to overplay and even easier not to like, brings that same level of authenticity in a way that she has rarely had the opportunity to in the past. If we're lucky, it's only the beginning.
If we're really, really lucky, it's only the beginning of Debra Winger's return to film as well. What a relief to see her again. A
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