Rachel Getting Married - Movie Review

No, not our Rachel getting married but the movie for which Anne Hathaway was nominated for an Academy Award.

Cute, perky Hathaway plays the downer role of the rehabbed sister out on a weekend pass to attend her sister's wedding and chaos ensues. You can tell Hathaway's serious because she has a serious haircut. That's Academy Award material right there. Also, she smokes. And like all actors who don't smoke, she looks like she's acting when she smokes. In the first couple of summers following my step-down from the IRS, I took the girls to several Anne Hathaway movies and became a fan. Maybe it's those summer days I want back but I like the cuter, perkier Anne Hathaway better than I did the serious one in this movie.

The wedding is something you'd only see in a movie, of course, and though I usually laud a movie that shows me something I've never seen before, I like that something to be somewhat reality-based. The screenwriter is a film director's daughter and the wedding she dreams up is the kind of wedding only a film director's daughter would have. Though the music is nice.

A typical family drama, with one character attending an event and upending things by bringing up the dark past, it hearkens back to an Altman movie and since only Robert Altman can really do an Altman movie, this is a pale imitation. I rather enjoy movies of family occasions where nothing really happens but I was surprised to find myself checking my watch and seeing not that much time had passed.

A good enough rental, I suppose, but not really recommended.