Monday Monologue: Kym from 'Rachel Getting Married'

Hello, lovelies. Beau here, filling in for Nathaniel on this week's Monday Monologue, featuring a film that is packed full of them.

Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married was, for my money, the best film of 2008. (Nathaniel shared my sentiments, though we don't always see eye to eye: note our complete polarized responses to the masterful Cloud Atlas last year.) That's not a title it earned easily, considering that it was also the year I was exposed to Charlie Kaufman's brilliant Synechdoche, New York as well as Christian Mungiu's Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, a film I lovingly referred to as 'that Romanian abortion picture' to friends who recoiled and cocked their heads at the thought of sitting through something like that.

No, what moved me the most, what hurt me the most was this small, intimate picture filmed on digital with many striking nods to the Dogme movement of the nineties, (filmed on location, hand-held, diegetic music) and providing a piercing, at times intrusive look at the lives of this shattered family. In it, each actor does the best work of their career. [more]  

Bill Irwin is criminally underutilized in the film world, and his effusive joy and sorrow here is palpable, naturally theatrical, and magnificent. Rosemarie DeWitt is sublime as the titular Rachel whose attention and focus is being hijacked by Kym, played by Anne Hathaway. 

Hathaway, until Rachel, was not considered by many to be a great actress. She was, at best, an intensely charismatic one, one who could carry everything from a Disney flick (The Princess Diaries, Ella Enchanted) and was making a pretty remarkable transition into popular adult fare (The Devil Wears Prada, Brokeback Mountain, etc.) Yet she still had not proven herself. Until Kym. In many ways, it is this performance that defined her career -- at least until Les Miserables -- and arguably changed many minds about her talents.

When I watch Rachel Getting Married, I don't see Anne Hathaway. I see no mannerisms, no tics, no indications of who this person may be other than herself. Kym's damaged appearance lends itself to Hathaway's success, but she is not defined by it. Rare is the modern movie star that can completely disassociate themself from their Hollywood persona.

When I think about Hathaway in the picture, I think of one scene in particular. 

Hi, I’m Kym, I’m an addict.

                                      

I am nine months clean.

When I was, umm, 16,

I was babysitting my little brother. 

                                        

And I was, umm, I was taking all these Percocet and I was unbelievably high and I,

umm, we had driven over to the park on Lakeshore and he was in his red socks and just running around in these pile of leaves and he would bury me and I would bury him,

in the leaves,

                                

and he was pretending he was a train 

and so he was running through the leaves and I was the caboose 

and he kept saying

                                 

Coal Caboose, Coal Caboose,

and umm, umm, we were,

it was time to go and I was driving home,

and I lost control of the car 

and drove off the bridge 

and the car went into the lake 

and I couldn’t get him out of his car seat 

and he drowned.

                        

And I struggle with God so much,

because I can’t forgive myself 

and I don’t really want to.

I can live with it, but I can’t forgive myself,

and sometimes I don’t want to believe in a God that could forgive me.

                    

                  

But I do want to be sober.

I’m alive and i’m present and there’s nothing controlling me.

If I hurt someone, I hurt someone, and I can apologize and they can forgive me or not,

but I can change.                

And I just wanted to share that and say, ‘Congratulations that God makes you look up, I’m so happy for you, but if he doesn’t, come here.’

That’s all, thank you.

                 

It's the moment where Demme's film, guarded and protective of its secret, opens. And with it comes the pain and everything else. What is so telling and true about Hathaway's work here is in its own guardedness. For everything that's said about her or assumed, we learn here how self-effacing and aware Kym is. Her gravitational pull brings others to her, their attention, something Rachel doesn't tap into until later in the picture. Indeed, the family as a whole is a very theatrical one, in the best sense of the word. The highs and lows aren't played for laughs, sobs or even an audience. In many ways, the Buchman tribe are a repertory without an audience. They each trade different roles, positions, thoughts with one another, and it's fascinating to see how they interact with one another. 

        

But Hathaway is perfect in the scene. For a film so concerned with and intrigued by family dynamics, it's strange that one of its most subtle moments is the one that could be played most for reaction. Kym isn't concerned with people's views on her or her tragedy, she's not looking to make a dramatic appeal for forgiveness. She accepts her situation and the ramifications that it has had, and will continue to have, on her life. Her testimonial her is more to herself. Making little eye contact with anyone, really, a very limited interaction at all, her acceptance of her role in the death of Ethan is something she's vocalizing, maybe for the first time. As we come to know Kym, we see that she is, indeed, capable of lying to many people, least of all, to herself. Is this the first opportunity she's had to come clean on the issue? It's not a territory one would want to cover often. Say your peace and get the hell out.

       

Hathaway averts eye contact, less out of shame and more out of necessity. Specifying your crime against your family, your life, your self, she's not looking for empathy here like she does with her family. She's looking for forgiveness from herself. And when she realizes, part of the way through that even saying the facts won't change them, won't change her feeling about them, she understands that she will live with it but she will never recover from it. Like a battle wound or an amputated appendange, you can learn to walk again, you can learn to talk again, move again, but you'll never be what you were.

       

Hathaway understands that the most damaged of us sometimes lose ourselves,

and we never really get them back.

     

All you get to do is build on the memory of what you were,

what you could have been,

to a place where maybe, just maybe, 

one day you'll knock the demons out of your head. 

Room for something new to grow.

Room for Absolution.

       

And as she extends her thanks for their ears and their time, 

she lowers her head to her chest,

and reverts back into the comfort of her pain and her failure, 

like a cocoon with a pillow and a down comforter,

waiting to wake up.

____________________

       

And you, dear readers, are you as much a fan of Hathaway in this picture or do youhave another MVP?

Do you think this one of the signature works of Demme's career, or a slight forgetable blip? Talk Rachel (and Kym) to us in the Comments.

Beau McCoy is a twenty-six year old aspiring playwright who has just completed his fourth play. He is currently in hot pursuit of his Bachelor's Degree before applying to numerous graduate schools for the Fall of 2014. His favorite films include Harold and Maude, Love and Death, Old Joy, Before Sunset, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, and Death Proof. You can follow him on Twitter, though he mainly retweets things others have said better and more eloquently than he's capable of. 

Comments

[denny]

I love this movie SO MUCH. Everyone in it is never less than completely believable, and Demme's direction is near perfect. Hathaway should have won the Oscar in a walk that year, and DeWitt and Irwin both should have been nominated, alongside Jenny Lumet for that brilliant screenplay. I'm not sure that it was my favorite of 2008, but it was up there, and I love people who do list it as their favorite that much more.

This is far from my favorite moment of Hathaway's, though. That would be either the toast at the rehearsal dinner (the "Shiva the Destroyer" monologue) or her reaction to Rachel announcing she's pregnant, which is hilariously dead-on for the character.

Side note: I was working in the town where this was filmed (Stamford, CT) at the time, and one day saw a movie shoot going on downtown while I was out getting lunch. I had no clue what it was until I saw the movie and gasped rather loudly when I recognized the location onscreen (the hair salon they go to the day before the wedding). People turned around and stared. I wanted to tell them that I walked right by that scene when they were filming, but thought better of it.

[Jordan]

The film Anne should've won the Oscar for. Love it so much, particularly the toast scene, where her bravery truly shines. She doesn't hold anything back: she goes for it 100 percent, heightening the awkwardness that much more. That's what I take away from her performance the most. She goes for it in every scene. You don't see that enough from Hollywood stars too often, as you said.

[Jordan]

And can I just say... the no-nomination for Rosemarie Dewitt just about broke my heart.

[Eric C.]

One of my favorites!!! Anne is so moving in it. I watch it multiple times a year. The performances are great! And let's not forget Debra Winger. Her part is small, but she does so much with it.

[Mike in Canada]

The movie for which Anne Hathaway earned my eternal goodwill.

[Volvagia]

denny: With the field they had? No question. If Winslet's far more honest Revolutionary Road work (seriously, her performance in The Reader was the flattest, least challenging take you could give on such a character) or Sally Hawkins were actually in Lead Actress? No way.

[CMG]

At first I hated this movie because it felt something like a mirror into certain aspects of my family. Now I love it, love the performances (it is pretty disappointing that Irwin and DeWitt were not nominated along with Hathaway), love the music (good music is a Demme trademark), and one of the smarter more effortless original scripts in years. I loved Rachel's reaction to the pregnancy because honestly, I was kind of on her side in that moment. To make the transition from bickering to dropping such huge news, something off yet very real about it. These characters are awkward and sometimes very unlikable but very real and I like there is a level of redemption, something that a lot of movies with the similar Rachel types (in both genders) seem to miss.

This is one of those movies you wished came along more often but is also expecting such movies to be as well-written, well-performed, and well-directed- because Jonathan Demme is an American treasure and more people should realize that in 2013.

[Ricopolo]

I love this film. Every time I watch it, I see something new.
The latest discovery was that Sebastian Stan played Walter.

[eurocheese]

Hathaway, DeWitt and Irwin were all stunning. Incredible. Perhaps the greatest feat of the film is that even with each of their big moments, they still completely feel like a family.

[Joe]

It's Kym, not Kim!
Rosemarie DeWitt was the standout for me. I thought Hathaway was great but, unlike you, could still see some of her beneath the character. I wouldn't say she completely disappeared (like, for example, Meryl Streep does in almost everything), but she was very good.

[Beau]

@Joe: Ahh, you're correct! Thanks :)

[CMG]

Bah! I've been confusing Kym and Rachel for ages.

[3rtful]

Beau, I didn't know you loved Death Proof -- that movie is everything.

[Beau]

Death Proof is my favorite Tarantino film, but I think I'm about the only person on the planet who feels that way.

[Eric C.]

It's my favorite Tarantino film, too. =)

[Me34]

To this day, I don't know what's so special about Sally Hawkins in "Happy go lucky" (it was like a relief not hearing her name at the announcing of the Oscar nominees that year). I totally agree Kate Winslet is much better in "Revolutionary road" than in "The reader" (even though I didn't like the first movie one bit and the other was a nice surprise among the nominees for me, and I know how people feel about "The reader"), but I still think both performances aren't better than Anne Hathaway's (Winslet had really great performances anyway, in "ESOTSM", "Iris" and "Heavenly creatures").
Also, I finished my ranking of the nominees in the acting categories from the last decade until this year, and Hathaway ranks very high in the leading actress list for this movie (if Nathaniel does another open-thread, I'll post them all).
Going back to "RGM", I didn't like it when I saw it, because it kinda bored me, but after I processed the whole thing in my head, years later I ended up thinking: "Wow, this movie feels so real and the acting is so natural it almost hurts". Everyone's so good I wouldn't singled out someone, but since Hathaway received the Oscar nomination (and most of the attention of the awards season) I've gotta say she's part of a very special group: someone who's been nominated for an Academy Award for his/her best performance (many are consequences of another great role/group of good performances by the same actor in the same year, overdue problems, buzz garnered, etc) and TBH, I don't think I've been impressed with her before or after.
Finishing (SPOILERS ALERT), the scenes that still resonate in my head: when Kym slaps Abby, when she breaks talking about her brother (the other time), and when she gives the engagement speech to Rachel and Sidney and everyone's silence make the most awkward moment of the movie.

[Volvagia]

Me34: I really don't know. I guess a lot of the mass reaction that got her the lions share of critics prizes can be viewed as the film critics going "hey, we have to honour a performance rooted in physicality as opposed to line delivery" that year. Unfortunately, yeah, it's certainly not special enough unless you "watch" your screener instead of listening to it. (That she wasn't nominated after her concerted effort is probably also why you didn't see critics groups pushing Matthew McConaughey last year, due to the Dallas performance being at least 60% pure (and non tic driven) physicality.)

[Troy H.]

Hathaway's performance in "Rachel Getting Married" would have won the Oscar had I anything to do with the voting. Kate and Leo's shouting matches in "Revolutionary Road" are redundant and the epitome of boring. I kept wishing that both characters would simply drop dead.

BTDubs, I loved "Death Proof" when I saw it in the theater.

[CMG]

Beau- No you're not! Okay, it's #3 for me behind Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown.

And I agree about Revolutionary Road. Not only redundant but dull. This may seem to be tonal and appropriate but as somebody who could at least find Mendes' other movies to be nice to look at, this movie was a chore and not really engaging in re-treading familiar territory. Michael Shannon is **the** ultimate audience surrogate. He is the only thing worth talking about in the movie. The moment where Winslet's character breaks into laughter and cracking in front of her husband, it did not feel real at all. Winslet's least memorable performances that gave her the best chance at an Oscar and one of them was pushed by the Weinsteins. That is really the only explanation. Also the last moments of the movie.... was that Mendes' version of 'Consider it a divorce!' dropping that kind of moment into a movie about husbands and wives?

[john]

the movie was great, but i hated anne hathaway's character. everything about her was despicable. the character simply disgusted me. that being said, she was brilliant in les mis.