Have you ever had the experience where you are at a party and you are a stranger. You know no one there, but everyone is so warm and real and loving and flawed that you soon get to know them like you know yourself. By the end of the party you do not want to leave because the thought of not being amongst these people makes you feel incredibly sad.This is the exact experience I had whilst watching this movie.
Forget the performances (everyone is PERFECT! Every performance rings true, I cannot fault anyone in this ensemble).
Forget the fact that this is not real life, that someone had to sit down and write these characters.
Also forget that Jonathan Demme, who directed 'The Silence of the Lambs', has created a film so honest that as a viewer you do not merely watch it as you live it.
To remind yourself of any of these things would be to remind yourself that this is simply a movie. Something I did not want to remember until it ended.
Grade: A
For an little angry side note I discovered after watching the film and looking up reviews:
Some reviewers have made negative comments on the fact that this seems to be a United Nations wedding and that in real life you never get such a cross section of ethnicities together.
I say that is just thinly disguised racism.
These people obviously no not socialize outside of their own race very often and were not able to relax admist so many different skin colours....more's the pity for them.
I am lucky in that I never once stopped enjoying this experience to count the racial diversity, it simply did not matter as it made sense within the context of an interracial marriage and a family where the patriarch is a musician.
I mean to quote Madona.."Music makes the people come together". Nuff said
4 comments:
The multicuturality thing was indeed very mentioned everywhere and Demme could've made something huge out of it a la Paul Haggis, but the beauty is that he doesn't give a damn. You never question how these people got together, that's not the issue, very little times we know how the couple met when we go to their wedding.
I think it's time for the audience to stop making a big deal about "non-traditional" relationships, whether they be because of sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs or political preference.
We're not in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" anymore! And I think the world is becoming more open to that.
Curiously enough when I saw this film in the States there were only three other people in the theater with me, all of them Caucassian, male, senior citizens.
It is so sad to me that this was a problem for people. Especially critics. Aren't these people immune to this sort of sh*t throwing?
Have they not seen enough cinema in their lives to not even flinch at an inter racial wedding (A term I HATE - makes it sound so clinical)
Rachel Getting Married is my favorite film from 2008, and it has a very, very solid spot in the top ten list of all the films I've seen, ever. Loved it.
It's sad that America still notices things like this. To me everything seemed totally natural. I didn't even think about the race thing. I was more interested in this bunch of characters that had been thrown together for this wedding.
Demme is really back on form with this movie. I didn't quite buy Anne Hathaway's performance but she was very close to the mark in many ways. Still think this is the best movie of the year and agree with your A rating.
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