Tagged: The Truth About Charlie
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
I hope my wedding is as bangin’ as this one.
Longstanding family conflicts resurface when drama queen Kym (Anne Hathaway,), a former model who’s been in and out of rehab for 10 years, returns to her parents’ home just before her sister Rachel’s (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding.
Jonathan Demme is known for directing big-budget films like Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and of course, the disappointing, Truth About Charlie. But with this he goes the indie-role, stripping-down all the big cameras, lights, and set pieces, and shows us a true, and realistic look, at a family, with more skeletons in the closet, then they can choose.
The best thing about this film is that you do feel like you’re there as this whole wedding weekend is going on. The constantly annoying toasts, seating arrangements, family fights, and most of all, the wedding itself, all feel real, and your actually taken on for the ride. It’s got a very close documentary feel, and the camera follows along, as you watch with shock as the story follows on too.
You can have so much style, and no substance, but that is not the case with this film. The writing is superb showing us the real problems, real families go through, and how other people try to cope with one member, constantly messing everything up. There are plenty of scenes that make you feel uncomfortable, but that’s just how life is, especially with your family, and it’s all too real.
The only problem I had with this film was the final act, which I thought could have done so much better, with showing more emotion, and more connection to the audience. I wish there were more scenes that conveyed as strong of emotion, as I thought it would have, but I guess what I got was good enough.
Anne Hathaway takes control in this film, and it’s just a perfect performance from her. I must say, it was pretty strange seeing her play somebody different, but Kym, herself, is strange, and by the end, Hathaway fully embodies Kym, and it’s just great to see. The rest of the cast is kind of little names that you may have heard of like: Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, and Debra Winger. They are all great and I can’t lie, but they each all surprised me with how much emotion they actually showed in this film. Oh, and must I not forget we have Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio, he does good here too.
Consensus: With enough bite, and enough realism to keep you engaged, Demme’s stylistic Rachel Getting Married, succeeds in conveying heavy emotions, as well as providing powerful, and strong performances from the cast.
8/10=Matinee!!
The Truth About Charlie (2002)
This Charlie guy does sound like a real dick!
Romance and suspense ignite a modern Paris backdrop in director Jonathan Demme’s fresh take on the Stanley Donen film Charade (also included on this disc). Regina (Thandie Newton) meets Joshua (Mark Wahlberg) while on vacation, as she’s contemplating ending her marriage to Charlie (Stephen Dillane). But upon her return to Paris, she finds that both her apartment and her bank account have been emptied — and her husband has been murdered.
Now it seems like remakes are coming out almost every week now, and this remake on a 1963 film Charade, is almost no different.
Jonathan Demme takes out the star power photographs the most drearily rainy Paris ever, and dumbs down all the lines. He veers back and forth between a darker take and remaking the original frothy whodunit until it’s not clear what he intended to do. A big miss all around. Unfortunately, I think Demme was working with a wrong material for what he wanted. At times, it even appeared that Demme himself was confused about whether he wanted a straight-forward light comedy or a more convoluted dark humor for the laughs. And the end result is a movie that doesn’t really succeed at anything it sets out to do.
This movie has way too many coinicidences that don’t seem reasonable or a bit too predictable. There is then a ridiculous scene where everyone who has threatened her just happens to show up at a dance hall, taking turns dancing with this heroine.
Thandie Newton does give out that little charm we know she can do very well, and brings out an actually good performance here as the lead. The problem was that I felt like Wahlberg as much as I love him he did feel seem a bit too clunky for this material and was acting too much as if he was in some action film, with his usual macho-esque appeal.
Consensus: Newton brings a lot of charm to the film, but is slow and doesn’t seem real at all, and more about the constant coincidences then the actual story itself.
3/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!!!
