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Rachel Getting Married
Sony Pictures Classics


5.3

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 146 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language and brief sexuality

Starring Anne Hathaway, Bill Irwin, Anna Deavere Smith, and Debra Winger

When Kym returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel, she brings a long history of personal crisis, family conflict and tragedy along with her. The wedding couple’s abundant party of friends and relations have gathered for a joyful weekend of feasting, music and love, but Kym—with her biting one-liners and flair for bombshell drama—is a catalyst for long-simmering tensions in the family dynamic. (Sony Picture Classics)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Jenny Lumet
DIRECTED BY:	Jonathan Demme
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 10, 2009 Theatrical: October 3, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	114 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A triumph -- Demme's finest work since "The Silence of the Lambs," and a movie that tingles with life.

100

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

It may be painful at times, but Rachel Getting Married sure is one heck of a party.

100

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Intriguing, disturbing, uplifting evocation. In fact, to watch this film is to engage in participatory art -- for better and for worse, through sickness and in health, we're drawn deeply in.

100

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A film that is both deceptively modest and deeply resonant.

100

New York Magazine David Edelstein

I've never seen a movie with this mixture of fullness and desolation. Rachel Getting Married is a masterpiece.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

True to the characters and their conflicts, the resolution is neither neat nor expected. True to Demme, it's honest and generous and very human.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Hathaway carries you on an emotional whirligig that can be horrifying and funny, hopeful and devastating.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

As successful as this family drama is, Demme proves himself to be quite a multitasker. With the skill of an ethnographer and the passion of a sentimentalist, he celebrates the traditions of marriage in a handful of tender set pieces.

Newsweek David Ansen

Most of the time, Demme's deliberately unstable mixture of moods and genres produces electric results. Rachel Getting Married takes a familiar subject--the raw nerves of American family life with--and draws fresh blood.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Best and most unexpected of all, Rachel Getting Married dares to mix the bitter with the sweet. It understands that life-altering situations like weddings not only bring out the worst in human behavior but also the finest.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

It’s a small movie, and in some ways a very sad one, but it has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit, that feels welcome and rare.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

Brimming with energy, elan and the unpredictability of his "Something Wild," Jonathan Demme's triumphant Rachel Getting Married may just lay the wedding film to rest, being such a hard act to follow.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The acting is of the highest caliber. Winger, magnificent and too long between films, is a volcano of repressed anger.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Jonathan Demme's superb rule-bending, heartrending and family-mending drama - ends with a wedding, it resists conventions as brazenly as does the bride's sister.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A portrait of a family reeling with pain and resentment -- and rising to the challenge of dealing with it head-on.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

As Kym, Hathaway runs an astonishing gamut of emotions, from anger to fragility and from hurt to regret - without ever seeming actress-y, like Nicole Kidman. Start clearing that mantelpiece, Anne.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

A triumph of ambience, Rachel Getting Married is the first narrative feature since the 1980s from director Jonathan Demme that feels like a party--bittersweet, but a party nonetheless.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The longer it goes on, the more you're swept up into the jet stream of good feeling.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The sprawling cast, the naturalistic, overlapping dialogue (here by screenwriter Jenny Lumet, daughter of director Sidney) and the swirling action: it seemed pure Robert Altman.

Empire Nick De Semlyen

One of Hollywood's forgotten masters and one of its brightest new actresses team for what could well be an Oscar wild card.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

It's not a terribly disciplined exercise--the rehearsal dinner and wedding ceremony go on so long I felt like I was watching "The Deer Hunter"--but the performances are outstanding, especially Hathaway's and Debra Winger's in a small but devastating turn as her chilly, resentful mother.

Slate Dana Stevens

Hathaway transcends her usual complacency in this role and resists the temptation of using Kym's (and her own) wounded-bird appeal to let the character off the hook.

The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young

A film whose lightness of touch rides a wave of family conflict to perfectly balance smiles and tears.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The life that swirls around Kym before, during and after her sister's densely populated, wonderfully detailed wedding seems to have been caught on the fly in all its sweetness, sadness and joy. (In its free-form style the film constitutes an elaborate homage to Robert Altman.)

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The upshot to a ticking bomb is that it only explodes the once, but Rachel's sister, Kym (Hathaway), goes off again and again.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie's few false notes come from Lumet's script, which can be overly explanatory. Because Demme is opting for present-tense realism, the characters are forced to fill us in on who did what when to whom, why, and how.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

At times, the movie gets bogged down in minutia but the emotions evoked and captured are as honest and brutal as one is likely to find on film.

USA Today Claudia Puig

At its best in scenes featuring Hathaway's mercurial character. It's a triumphant and darkly nuanced role for her and a departure from the more lighthearted comedic performances she has given.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

With a minimum of actorly fuss, Winger shows us the rage and hurt inside this overcontrolled woman. It's a great piece of acting – high drama at the service of the highest talent.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The picture may end a little too breezily, but Demme knows we have to be left with some hope for these wandering souls. Someday, they'll find their way home; it just may not be the same thing as going home.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Alfred Hitchcock once said, "Drama is life with the dull bits left out." Well, Rachel Getting Married is drama with the dull bits left in.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

A middlebrow domestic drama beating its wings against an experimental frame.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

A minor work, but so menaced by distress that the characters take every opportunity to dance the dark away.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A fine ensemble piece, but a maddening and unjustified length.

Time Richard Schickel

The result is a mess. Kym, in Hathaway's unsympathetic performance, is an annoyingly sour observer of the proceedings, a time bomb everyone hopes will not explode before the marriage is completed.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 146 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Rusty J gave it a2:
To paraphrase President Obama, I'm not against all arty flicks, I'm against bad, boring arty flicks which on top of it waste a half hour playing mediocre music (Robyn Hitchcock? Pick up the phone Demme, the 80's are calling you home).

Pat D gave it a0:
An implausible piece of liberal, PC rubbish. Thumbs up for some of the acting performances, a shame it was all for naught in this stinker. Interesting merely as a study of what's wrong with America: neurotic, dysfunctional, nihilistic, delusional. Oh, and all that violin playing was very annoying.

Michael K. gave it a9:
A slow start, indeed, but it grew to be rather compelling after maybe 20 minutes in. I think the reason many of those who gave it less than 5 didn't like is because the director is not telling the audience exactly how to feel. North American audiences have been lulled into being told when to laugh, cry, that we are in shock (and "bored") when we're not given such clear direction. I was amazed at this film. I couldn't understand why it had that power. When I watched the special features which discussed the filmaking technique, I was intrigued.

David gave it a10:
A masterpiece. Anyone who has had a family tragedy or tensions will see the immense value of this film. Hathaway is a revelation here and I'm sure most of the negative comments come from folks who expected a typical Hathaway PRINCESS DIARY PART 14 but this is life and the chirpy Anne we have come to love was not invited to this wedding. Bravo to everyone involved, esp. director Demme. Thanks for an astounding evening....we didn't even pause the DVD for a restroom break!

John S gave it a1:
15 minutes in and I knew renting this looked like a mistake. 30 minutes in and I stopped watching. Yet another example of a movie loved by critics and panned by those of us who just want to enjoy a movie.

Kai F gave it a10:
I wanted to give it a 9, but after reading all the comments i finally gave it a 10. It's kind of uplifting that this movie got so many mixed responses, but still i could't really understand why. Then i read a comment about how this is the most overrated movie since Lost in Translation. I think this says it all. There are three types of reviewers. 1. Who totally hated it 2. Who totally hated it but at least recognized the great acting 3. Who totally loved it. I think the first two groups of people got astray in their local big commercial cinema because the title stood next to those of the standard Hollywood production...best family drama i have ever seen and i have seen it twice, because it was not a second boring.

G Man gave it a0:
Worst piece of garbage I've ever had the misfortune to be sat in front of. A God-aweful train train wreck of a movie, and a tragic waste of a few precious minutes of the remaining days of my life. Gah!!!

Rachel Getting Married Sony Pictures Classics

Rachel Getting Married
Sony Pictures Classics