MOVIE REVIEW: "Rachel Getting Married"
Once again I am reminded why I have little fondness for the 1970s; the world (and temperment) in which this tedious film swims. Rachel Getting Married is a long, self-absorbed, indulgent (I thought the wedding reception scene would never end) celebration of "we all love each other, don't we"- a quintessential wedding party of racial, gender, ethnic diversity and New Age togetherness.
The hand held camera bounces and bounces and bounces amonst all that love, the actors are so 'real' and improvisatory and neurotically emotional (that kind of acting emotional-without-any-narrative-obligation isn't as hard to do as it looks, by the way) that the film and the central characters becomes cloying and cute.
Do we need yet another adolescent neurotic drama of a dysfunctional family? I wanted to shout: "Haven't we all been-there/seen-that/done-that'! Yes, our Mommies and Daddies weren't perfect; yes, there is a tragedy in all our family lives. So get over it and grow up. Or at least try harder and quicker to grow up and maybe I'll identify with you more when you find it difficult."
My wife said: "When is this #$@% going to end."
The answer: never; as long as audiences (at all ages) stay adolescent and self-absorbed, and writers and directors and producers continue to indulge, focus on and venerate without objectivity or depth their shrinks, Neil Young, and Hindu mysticism.
The acting is fine (I like Rosemarie DeWitt better than Anne Hathaway); as is the editing; but the creative vision sucks. Jonathan Demme, the director, got caught in a (personal?) time warp: back to Woodstock, everyone?
The hand held camera bounces and bounces and bounces amonst all that love, the actors are so 'real' and improvisatory and neurotically emotional (that kind of acting emotional-without-any-narrative-obligation isn't as hard to do as it looks, by the way) that the film and the central characters becomes cloying and cute.
Do we need yet another adolescent neurotic drama of a dysfunctional family? I wanted to shout: "Haven't we all been-there/seen-that/done-that'! Yes, our Mommies and Daddies weren't perfect; yes, there is a tragedy in all our family lives. So get over it and grow up. Or at least try harder and quicker to grow up and maybe I'll identify with you more when you find it difficult."
My wife said: "When is this #$@% going to end."
The answer: never; as long as audiences (at all ages) stay adolescent and self-absorbed, and writers and directors and producers continue to indulge, focus on and venerate without objectivity or depth their shrinks, Neil Young, and Hindu mysticism.
The acting is fine (I like Rosemarie DeWitt better than Anne Hathaway); as is the editing; but the creative vision sucks. Jonathan Demme, the director, got caught in a (personal?) time warp: back to Woodstock, everyone?
posted by Cliff Osmond at 5:51 PM
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