Misery, drug rehabilitation and dysfunctional families are always fun-as

long as they're not yours. It's a favorite box office formula to jerk the

heartstrings, and it's no secret. "Rachel Getting Married" plays on these

conventional themes, but it resonates with an off-kilter and graceful

modesty. The ingenuity of direction and Anne Hathaway's performance lift

this indie film onto the shelf of Oscar-buzzing, high-end dramas.

The story is not as simple as the title suggests. The eldest daughter,

Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) of the splintered Buchman family is getting

married to an African-American musician, Sydney (Tunde Adebimpe, the lead

singer of TV on the Radio), and the whole happily rambling hodgepodge of

the interracial family celebrates under one humble Connecticut roof. The

title belies the dark and toxic core of the film that is Rachel's younger

sister, Kym (Hathaway)-who had just been released from her latest stint in

rehab. Monochrome-clad, cigarette puffing and tattoo-bearing, Hathaway no

longer plays princess but a very black sheep that seemed to have stumbled

out of a Keraouc novel.

As the fretful father (Bill Irwin), the removed mother (Debra Winger), and

the two sisters navigate back into each other's lives, they set off

painful and (often violent) time bombs. Against the colorful backdrop of a

bohemian wedding and the circus-band's wafting string ballads, the gaping

wound of a tragic past is vaulting. Writer Jenny Lumet's story aches with

a Baumbach melody where all the characters falter and fail in their own

selfish and dysfunctional mess. Unapologetically abrasive, Kym is not

entirely likable. It is not until the last quarter when we finally see

past her self-inflicted black eye and bad haircut, and see a coltish

beauty, bucking and buckling at every bad opportunity.

As grave as the film is, it is not without humor or gala. The neurotic

bride-to-be and her hyper-waspy best friend attack Kym as a "visiting

sociopath," who is herself armed with brazen rehab jokes and is prone to

hysterical bouts of second-child malady. Diverting dangerous cliches,

Demme effortlessly captures the creme de la creme of family malfunction

with a shaky handheld camera. With grainy textures and rough cuts, Demme's

home-spun film radiates with shameless honesty. He masterfully captures a

claustrophobic landscape of eclectic yet homely characters and their array

of idiosyncrasies. The non-dramatic camerawork is matched by the

unaffected and natural performances of the actors. They don't seem to

belong to Hollywood's sparkly bastion, albeit class act Debra Winger and

her subtle yet heartbreaking performance as the frigid and despondent

matriarch.

The Indian-style wedding fete, as the intermission of the high drama,

disrupts the momentum and decelerates the film into what feels like a

drug-induced escapade, replete with live music, dancing and swirling

panoramas. Ultimately this hyper-stylized and chaotically rich sequence

distracts rather than complements the familial anarchy. And Sydney's a

cappella number of Neil Young during wedding vows could have been saved

for the DVD's special feature section. Other than outbursts of song, the

outbursts of violent emotion rival the firework explosions and urban

destruction of a Spielberg flick. The confrontations are abusive and

jarring. Although Demme has a gripping command of high intensity scenes,

subtlety was the main missing ingredient. Kym lacked it, and so did her

fiery battles.

The story is one of both celebration and heartbreak, and Demme tells it

well. He also tells us that misery is good but catharsis better. The

tragedy is anchored in the characters' inability to change and recover.

Although the characters fail, the film delivers intelligence and brims

with the grit and dirt of a recovering family.

Tags: FILM PREMIERE