Ralph's Movie Reviews: RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Sunday, February 8, 2009

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Anne Hathaway: Kym Buchman
Rosemarie DeWitt: her older sister Rachel
Bill Irwin: their father Paul
Debra Winger: their mother Abby
Tunde Adebimpe: Rachel’s fiancé Sidney, a musician

REVIEW
Half way through I began to think the producers had such a limited budget there was no money for post-production film editing. But I was wrong. According to the end credits there was someone assigned the job but he was obviously playing it loose and free because just about everything goes on far too long: the unscripted toasts, the wedding vows, the reception (I didn’t time it but it must be 15 minutes long) not to mention more than a few of the conversations leading up to that.

Filming with a hand-held camera resulting in jerky, out-of-focus, whirling shots is fine when there is no other alternative to capturing the images. But this technique has no place in a movie of this sort. It belittles this story about a dysfunctional family that has serious issues to deal with.

There are some good performances (Hathaway and Irwin in particular) but they are wasted in this overblown depiction of life.

CLASSIFICATION

for language and brief sexuality.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
Despite crashing with quite some force into a highway sign the front of the car hasn’t got so much as a scratch on it. Not that I can blame them; I wouldn’t want to mess up a brand new Mercedes-Benz either.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.