I HATED THIS MOVIE

Ordinarily I reserve reviews for books, music, or films that I've not only enjoyed, but that I truly wish to share with other people. "Rachel Getting Married", a movie released last year, is rather the opposite. I despised this movie so intensely I simply had to vent about it on the blog.

Anne Hathaway does herself no credit whatsoever portraying the infinitely loathable Kym Buchman in "Rachel Getting Married". A lifelong junkie who's attempted to kick drug and alcohol addiction numerous times, Kym gets a brief release from a clinic in order to nearly destroy her elder sister's nuptials.

Rosemarie DeWitt brings one of the only sympathetic characters to the film as Rachel, whose life has been spent watching her self-destructive sibling's antics decmiate their family. I had not noticed Ms. DeWitt's cruelly hawklike proboscis so much in "Mad Men", but then the camera angles in "R.G.M." were rather unforgiving on just about every actor. Jonathan Demme, the director, utilized dizzying hand-held-camcorder shots so often I nearly reached for the Dramamine--the result was far from artistic, it was literally nauseating.

Due largely to a devastating incident within the family (caused, unsurprisingly, by a high-as-a-kite Kymmie), the parents of the bride are divorced and each has remarried. Effeminate father Paul (Bill Irwin, who's apparently a pioneer in contemporary American clowning---*cringe*) is the husband of Carol; delightfully distant mother, Abby (played beautifully by Debra Winger), is partnered with Andrew. Abby has little time for her children, maintaining distance in order to move on from her dysfunctional original clan to new horizons with her second spouse.

The majority of the movie is taken up by Kym's monotonous monologues as to how no one understands the plight of the recovering junkie. She makes an unlikely connection with Kieran (Mather Zickel), the best man at the wedding, although he can't rescue her from her obsessive need to destroy everything in her life. Kym, who has spent a majority of the recent past either in rehab or prison, even demands that Rachel remove her best friend, Emma (Anisa George), as her maid of honor and give that position to her [Kym]. There is also a scene of mind-numbing discomfort when Kym delivers a lengthy "toast" at the rehearsal dinner, which quickly transmogrifies into yet another patented "Kymmie Buchman Self-Pitying Soliloquy About HOW HARD IT IS TO BE ME".

Sidney Williams (Rachel's fiancee/husband) is played by Tunde Adebimpe, the lead singer of the group TV on the Radio (I liked his character, who was low-key and amusing). The music in this film, however, is abysmal, with ridiculously extended scenes of very strange, sitar-driven orchestrations being danced to by bored-looking cast members. The wedding itself is bizarre: the Buchmans are Jewish and the Williamses are African-American but with no particular (or at least obvious) connection to Hinduism. Yet the couple is married in a Hindu-esque environment (Indian music, the bride and her attendants wear saris, the wedding cake boasts a huge elephant...?!) that makes no sense on any level.

I couldn't have cared less about Kymmie Buchman and her angst-ridden plight of being hopelessly addicted to apparently every known amphetamine and barbituate in the world. I did feel for Rachel, though: a devoted and duty-driven daughter, yet forever cast aside in light of her sister's perpetual parade of drug-induced, self-loathing-riddled meltdowns. A part of me really hoped Kym would overdose and die before the end; unfortunately that just didn't happen...

How this particular film ended up gracing so many "Best of 2008" movie lists is thoroughly unnerving, and does nothing to hold back my final word on this drivel: spare yourself and decline the invitation to see "Rachel Getting Married".