1. NJWolfgang

   8

   Nice cast. Some very good performances. Technical aspects were really above average. The real plus here is seeing two black families portrayed as "real" families dealing with issues that are universal to all of us. Well done.… Expand

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2. Shiira

   7

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Analogous to the Talking Heads concert movie "Stop Making Sense", her's was a family of just white people in "Rachel Getting Married", but then God needed an angel(sorry, Nicole from John Cameron Mitchell's "Rabbit Hole"), and Carol, a black woman, replaced Abby as the household matriarch, when dad decided to get hitched again in the aftermath of Ethan's death, thanks to Kym, who drove her younger brother off a bridge while loaded. For better or for worse, the family wasn't so white anymore. With utmost delicacy, in "Rachel's Getting Married", there's definitely some channeling going on here, in which filmmaker Jonathan Demme returns to the Pantages Theater stage by employing the narrative construction from his 1984 music documentary as a sort of backstory for the similarly integration-themed movie. The Talking Heads were really cooking that December night back in '83. Standing on stage with bassist Tina Weymouth, during "Heaven", David Byrne sings "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens," which when transposed to "Rachel Getting Married", describes a double-edged happiness in that a life of uninterrupted domestic bliss becomes, perhaps, a life without challenges. "Same as it ever was," nonetheless, Paul would have been content with being like a lot of Americans, who have no seconds acts, according to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but then Ethan died, so no longer did the "water flowing underground" go unnoticed. "Thank You For Sending Me An Angel" is seemingly sung in the voice of God, who, as it's stated in the Old Testament, created mankind in his own image, which is alluded to by a second-person lyric like "you can walk, you can talk just like me." Correspondingly, Ethan had nothing but time to "look around the world." Meanwhile, back on earth, integration came into his family's Connecticut home, as it did for the Talking Heads on their 1980 album "Remain in Light". As a monochromatic band, in "Stop Making Sense", the NYC musicians exhibit peerless musicianship and an engaging stage presence; as a multi-ethnic one, when Byrne & Weymouth(along with Chris Franz and Jerry Harrison) are joined by percussionist Steve Scales and backup singers Lynn Mabry & Edna Holt on "Slippery People", they become a better version of themselves. The same could be said about Rachel's family after Carol joins the fold. Paul, played by Bill Irwin, a noted performance artist, could be a virtual stand-in for Byrne, especially on "This Must Be the Place(Naive Melody). Doing a little performance art himself, rock's renaissance man dances with a lamp on a stage that is decorated with the intention of being a house, akin to Paul and Carol's new home, where Rachel and Sidney, another interracial couple, are getting set for their nuptials, joined by a pan-cultural guest list whose easy camaraderie with each other is as natural as the on-stage interaction between Byrne's original lineup and their extended musical family. Sabrina's getting married in "Jumping the Broom", a class-conscious comedy about light and dark-skinned blacks that faintly echoes the 2009 Demme film in that both movies feature a slippery person who nearly derails the celebration with their own toxic brand of narcissism. Loretta Devine, playing a working class mother whose son is marrying an affluent woman she despises on principle alone, arrives at Martha's Vineyard by ferry and becomes flustered that nobody from the bride's family is there to greet her. They had sent a car and driver. Moreover, she's especially hurt by the no-show of her son, a potentially estranged son. Likewise, Kym wonders aloud where Rachel is, when dad picks his daughter up at the drug rehabilitation center. In both cases, the persecuted women go on to give scary speeches at their respective pre-wedding dinners. "I'm Shiva the destroyer, your harbinger of doom this evening," goes Kym, using her turn, following round after round of warm speeches from well-wishers, to remind the variegated party guests that she's "black"(as in the black sheep of the family), whereas the postal worker addresses a segregated room, beginning with the platitude "the meek shall inherit the earth," and in the process, points out that Mrs. Watson is black, despite the jaw-dropping revelation that her ancestors back in Jamaica had owned slaves. Further secrets are spilled. In order to exorcise her "blackness", Kim utilizes transference by questioning Abby's irrevocable decision to entrust a small child in the hands of a drug addict. Now the mother understands what it means to be "black". In "Jumping the Broom", Mrs. Taylor tells Sabrina that she's adopted. Her real father might be white, the result of an aunt's French fling. Upon discovering her true heritage, Sabrina complies to the slave tradition of "jumping the broom", an act made condescending, perhaps, born from white guilt. Pretend time is over. Her bourgeois ways start to make sense.… Expand

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3. MadMonk

   3

   nothing new in this story and nothing exceptional either. too bad for Angela Bassett to waste her talent on this tired movie. full of contrived drama that has neither rhyme nor reason to exist within the parameter of the story. it's as if the writer is writing by checking off plot points one after another and making up crisis to bridge them together.… Expand

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