Rachel Getting Married

Demme had wanted to work with Anne Hathaway ever since he spotted her in a crowd at a screening five years earlier. He immediately took her in consideration for the lead role.[3] Hathaway later said of her first reading Lumet's script: "I was in my old apartment in the West Village Manhattan, just pacing back and forth between the kitchen table and the couch. I somehow wound up on the floor sobbing by the last page."[4]

Rosemarie DeWitt was considered by the film's casting directors. Demme and the rest of the crew were impressed and immediately wanted her to play Rachel. Bill Irwin is a personal friend of Demme's.

Tunde Adebimpe's role, Sidney, was originally offered to American film director Paul Thomas Anderson while he was working on the post-production of the movie There Will Be Blood.[5]

Demme was concerned about Debra Winger's interest in doing the film, but he pumped up his courage to ask her because they had met several times before at the Jacob Burns Center, a film center close to their homes. Winger later accepted the role of Abby.[3]

The music-loving director Demme invited musicians to compose the score live on set, to support the film's storyline.[6]

"For the longest time," Demme has said, "I've had this desire to provide the musical dimension of a movie without traditionally scored music. I thought: wait a minute; in the script, Paul [father of the bride] is a music-industry bigwig, Sidney's a record producer, many of his friends will be gifted musicians, so of course there would be non-stop music at this gathering. We have music playing live throughout the weekend, but always in the next room, out on the porch or in the garden."[6]

Throughout the unconventional filming and loosely staged scenes, a New York–based Middle Eastern ensemble, including Palestinian musician Zafer Tawil, and Iraqi Amir ElSaffar, who played the score of Demme's documentary Man from Plains, compose the score on set. Always present at the filming, the musicians had the freedom—and were encouraged—to play whenever they were inspired to, and to ignore the camera.

According to Demme on the DVD, during filming of a dramatic scene, Hathaway complained about the music interfering with the mood, to which Demme responded, "Tell her to do something about it!" Hathaway, in that scene, responded by improvising the line, "Can you tell them to knock it off?!" to which another actor not heavily involved in the scene went off-screen and told the band to stop.[7]

Well-known actors mingle anonymously on-screen with musicians, artists, and dancers. Among them are the New Orleanian saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., and the Brooklyn-based TV on the Radio's lead singer Tunde Adebimpe.

Singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock plays a wedding guest. At the ceremony Hitchcock, at the request of his old friend Demme, performs the song "America" from his 1982 album Groovy Decay. He also plays "Up To Our Nex." written for the movie. "It's my micro-encapsulation of the movie. The song is trying to be a voice in Kym's head."[6] Filmed in one take at the wedding party, he is spontaneously joined by the hip-hop star Fab 5 Freddy, and the dancehall singers Sister Carol, ElSaffar and Tawil.

Hitchcock recalled,

My memory of the whole thing is of being at a real wedding, although without the alcohol. A lot was shot in real time and the end result was the whole thing seemed as if it really had happened. It's as real as it gets. By the time I did 'Up To Our Nex' in the tent I had 15 people. Amir did a horn arrangement and Demme's son Brooklyn Demme was on electric guitar. We hadn't all played together before. The line between reality and fiction – it was a door you could walk in and out of as much as you liked. The idea that they are just playing live, that's the beauty of it. The thing I really liked about the music in the movie is that it all happens in real time. The moments of real tension in the film are not signposted by the score. It's not telling you how you're going to react when the music comes. The music is very organic, not manipulative.[6]

For Demme, it was about creating evocative music in the moment.[6]

The film received critical acclaim and appeared on many "Best Film of 2008" lists. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 84% based on 201 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Rachel Getting Married is an engrossing tale of family angst, highlighted by Anne Hathaway's powerful performance and director Jonathan Demme's return to form."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 82 out of 100 based on 36 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim"..[9]

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a triumph of ambience", and applauded the acting, declaring that "Hathaway, DeWitt, Irwin and especially Winger are working at a very high level" in the film.[10] Roger Ebert's four-star rating added, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, 'Rachel Getting Married' is like the theme music for an evolving new age."[11] Other critics praised Jonathan Demme. Andrew Sarris noted in the New York Observer "his career of cinematic good works"[12] and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly observed "a fight scene that's as raw as Ingmar Bergman and as operatic as Mildred Pierce"... and "Demme's finest work since The Silence of the Lambs.[13]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone noted that Rachel Getting Married is "a home run ... [it goes] deep into the joy and pain of being human."[14] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said that the film "has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit, that feels welcome and rare".[15]

Many reviewers praised the film for its organic feel; Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek noted that "with 'Rachel Getting Married,' Demme has once again scaled back, making a picture that has some of the ease and warmth of his earlier movies, although it also feels stripped down and direct in a way that's new for Demme."[16] USA Today proclaimed: "After a foray in documentary films, director Jonathan Demme has returned to narrative storytelling, assuming a decidedly cinéma vérité style that has echoes of Robert Altman. The film's greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism in portraying dinner parties and interpersonal encounters that can throw family members off-kilter."[17] The Los Angeles Times noted:

Helping give this story its essential air of reality is the decision Demme and cinematographer Quinn made to shoot it as what they call "the most beautiful home movie ever made." The director chose not to plan shots in advance, instead giving Quinn (whose credits include Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding") the ability to respond in the moment to what was going on with the actors, and it's a tribute to his ability (and that of editor Tim Squyres) that his camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time.[18]

Anne Hathaway won raves for her work as Kym. USA Today found her wonderful in the role and wrote "Her nervous laughter, edginess and quick temper blend convincingly with her need for attention and vulnerability."[17] Newsweek commented: "Kym is a major pain in the ass, and Hathaway's raw, spiky performance makes no attempt to ingratiate. Yet she makes Kym's inner torment so palpable you can't help but feel for her, however insufferable she may be. It's a terrific performance ...".[19] Empire felt that "Kym is a peach of a role—she sleeps with the best man, fights with the maid of honor, quips, 'You're so thin, it's like you're Asian'—and Hathaway squeezes it for all the juice it's worth, making this raw-nerved, narcissistic Tasmanian Devil not just believable, but somehow likable."[20]

Beyond general analysis, film scholars have also approached the film as a critical commentary on East Coast liberalism in Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology.[21]

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.[22]