RACHEL AT THE WEDDING

Ooooooh man. I paid $14.50 to see this movie.

The venue was an old, fabulous fave, the same Arclight in Gritwood where I saw THE DARK KNIGHT a few months back and ATONEMENT with James "hot" McAvoy in the flesh a few months even before that. But the Light is far from me, and gotta admit I wouldn't have made the journey--or paid the money--if it wasn't for the face that the slightly cheaper, nearer upscale half-indy cinema option on the Westside was sold out. Sold out. Sold out at a sowing of the Most Random Movie of the Year. Congrats, RACHEL, you just got that award. And with my shoddy luck this upcoming awards season, I fear we haven't seen the last of you.

RACHEL (and her wedding) was bizarre, colorful, weird. It was the shakiest hand-held camera work since that drippy nose scene in BLAIR WITCH--which I didn't see for a reason--except it had more musicians. Weird musicians. Not only did RACHEL have the most antagonisingly monotonous scoring since THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but its plot was off, too. It felt...real and yet fake at the same time. Like...I felt like I was in this movie, at this wedding. But in the '60s. This progressive white woman was marrying a big, jazz-playin' black man who wore glasses with tinted frames Lennon-style, ALL THE TIME, while a gigantic dog roamed the premises, everyone wore Indian saris and shouted "L'Chaim!", musicians kept house by playing around the clock, an old white woman spun hip-hop on her turn tables (yes, this all happened), and I kept begging the minister and the violinist to cut to the chase already and make the whole ceremony end so I could get back to watching new episodes of "Happy Days." Problem was, this movie, I'm pretty sure, takes place in present day. That is, in 2008. And that made it the most eclectic upper middle class slice of life since THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, but with a stark lack of everything that makes that film so humorous. Put in a little more drug abuse, a few more suicide attempts, some bad--really bad--violin...and take out Angelica Huston, Bill Murray, Luke Wilson and well, everyone from that cast...and sit in one of those teacups at Disneyland right after eating runny scrambled eggs...and then take a depressant...and you've got RACHEL AT THE WEDDING.

Now, I should tip my hat to Ms. Hathaway, our leading lady (whose character's name, might I add, is K-Y-M, Kym. Pronounced Kim. Spelt Kym. Detail that went over everyone's heads until the end credits...but after seeing this movie, of COURSE it was spelt that way). Her acting was pretty solid, as was the rest of the cast. When she first stumbled on the scene with un-pretty short hair but with a cigarette hanging from her almost Jolie-pretty pout, I immediately thought, "Miscast." Sorry, Anne. I thought the same thing in BROKEBACK, too. But by the time she'd blinked back a few tears while a violin whined in the background, I thought, "Wow, you're pretty good at this whole acting thing." She impressed me--about halfway through the movie and then onward until the end--as did the rest of the cast, all who brilliantly seemed to step into the tragic lives of the parts they played so seamlessly, I often forgot I was watching a movie at all, as I said, and instead felt, at times, that I had somehow...unfortunately...fallen right into their lives. Luckily that wasn't the case.

plot: Dysfunctional family seeks no therapy.
thought: Please don't release a soundtrack.
in five: 2.5/5 (the acting was raw and real, and that's what raised it...from a 2 to a 3, but the randomness of everything else brought it back down)

tune in or out: http://www.sonyclassics.com/rachelgettingmarried/