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Jeffrey says:

I haven’t reviewed this film yet. But I loved it. It’s at #4 in my Favorite Films of 2008 list.

Here are some reviews I recommend:

Victor Morton:

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED has plenty of antecedents — the most obvious and deepest being the first Danish Dogme film, THE CELEBRATION (which I heartily recommend): shot on video, similar hand-held shooting style, similar narrative hook (a family gathering that starts falling apart with a public toast). I’d also mention THE ICE STORM (ditto): enervation in the rich Connecticut suburbs. And the films of Robert Altman (I’ve not seen his A WEDDING, but the overlapping dialog style and naturalistic recording and the gathering of a large crowd is pure Altman anyway). Incredibly though, RACHEL improves on all these: less sensationalistic and cut-and-dried than the Vinterberg; more emotionally involving than the Lee; and better-focused on about three characters than some of Altman’s Big-Cast Movies (as in real life, main characters whom we get to know function as persons, while lesser characters mostly function as Signifiers). There’s even echoes of the greatest-ever “family quarrel” movie, Bergman’s AUTUMN SONATA — in an emotionally-needy child who’s her own worst enemy in some ways, and in an ending (I will be vague) that implies through open-ended wistfulness two things at once: the realization that the emotionally-grueling events we’ve just seen might be repeated, or might never have the chance to be repeated, and it’s hard to say which is more terrifying. Yes, I just compared a Jonathan Demme joint to Ingmar Bergman.

Roger Ebert:

The rules say that critics don’t discuss movies after screenings. After I saw Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” for the second time, however, a friend asked: “Wouldn’t you love to attend a wedding like that?” In a way, I felt I had. Yes, I began to feel absorbed in the experience. A few movies can do that, can slip you out of your mind and into theirs.

…

When Robert Altman is thanked in the end credits, I imagine it is not only because he was Demme’s friend, but because his instinct for ensemble stories was an example. Demme’s owes much to his editor, Tim Squyres, who also edited Altman’s “Gosford Park,” another film that kept track of everyone at a big house party. That might have been the very reason he was hired.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Film Forum, Film Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.