Rachel Getting Married vs Baby Mama

By the end of Rachel Getting Married, you'll feel like you know the characters. This happens once in a while. But in Rachel Getting Married, you'll feel like you know the characters, they've invited you over to their home, and then caught you going through their medicine cabinet.

Jonathan Demme directed Rachel Getting Married as if he were Gus Van Sant pretending to be Robert Altman. It's an eclectic cast, filmed in a real home, using what appears to be real light. The camera is hand-held (not always by the steadiest hand, but you get used to it), and drifts in and out of rooms, capturing faces and conversations. Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt, think a warmer Helen Hunt) is getting married, and her friends, family and in-laws have gathered for the weekend. At the center of it all is Kym (Anne Hathaway), Rachel's sister, who is a former teen model and a current rehab patient, on leave for the weekend. We're basically waiting for Kym and Rachel to bond, only after Kym botches the wedding and then learns to love herself in rehab, but that's just because we've seen 28 Days. Instead, Kym has already been in rehab for a while, is months sober, and seems semi-eager to enjoy the festivities and support her sister. She makes an effort anyway. Kym is brutally honest, gallows-sarcastic, defensive and inappropriate. And, of course, she fucked the best man, and is the source of her family's greatest sadness. If all this sounds a little much for Anne Hathaway, brace yourself. She's more than up for the challenge. Hathaway is bitingly funny, but also vulnerable and interesting. Kym's a pain, but I think I'd probably like her. And instead of taking Hathaway the Ugly-Gets-Awards route, they've reinterpreted beauty for the character. Kym no longer looks like a model, and she doesn't look like Anne Hathaway either. Kym's make-up, hair and clothes suit her, and I'm guessing she likes the way she looks (I think she looks pretty hot, actually, and that best man didn't complain either.) As great as Hathaway is, I'm beginning to develop the attitude that all actors should be good, and all performances should be simultaneoulsy comfortable and inspired. She's just doing her job, really. It's not that she's suddenly an acting phenom, it's more that so many other actresses of her generation don't appear to be trying much. They'll regret it later.

Throughout the movie, we get all the events you'd see at a wedding--dinners, toasts, rehearsals, fittings--many played in real time. The rehearsal dinner goes on and on, with each member of the wedding party standing and making beautiful, awkward, funny speeches. Of course Kym's is a disaster, a mix of rehab-speak, apology and guilt trip. The chemistry between DeWitt and Hathaway is so realistic, sometimes Rachel Getting Married feels like a documentary. There's a wordless scene near the end when Rachel helps Kym get cleaned up after a car accident that tells us everything we need to know about either sister.

The rest of the family shines as well. Bill Irwin plays Rachel and Kym's father. Apparently Irwin was a regular on Sesame Street for a while. Lucky kids. This is one of my favorite performances of the year. Irwin is a bundle of nervous affection, contantly clapping or shaking his hands, or hugging or grabbing a face. He's emotional and friendly, and you get the idea his response to finding out Rachel was getting married was instant excitement over his family getting bigger. I hope he gets an Oscar nomination and that he's cast as Kenneth's dad on 30 Rock ASAP. Debra Winger plays their mother, semi-estranged, semi-angry. I think Debra Winger is awesome, in a way, because she emphatically does not give a shit what you think, or if she's ever in another movie. And then when she is in a movie, she adds a million layers that wouldn't be there otherwise. She has one big scene with Hathaway that will have you wondering which actresses of Winger's generation benefited the most from her semi-retirement. Cause if she'd wanted to work full time, she'd have snagged some big parts.

As you may have gathered, Jonathan Demme has never directed a film like this. He makes it look like a breeze; Rachel Getting Married is easily his best work since The Silence of the Lambs. I'm not sure what the rehearsal process was like for the movie, but the cast of Rachel Getting Married felt so much like an actual family, it's like they'd been doing the show on the road for a year first. Demme's also got great taste in music. Rachel Getting Married has so much live singing, an argument could be made for categorizing it as a musical (the highlight being TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe using Neil Young as his wedding vows.)

My original intent was to have you watch My Best Friend's Wedding, because in my mind, it was a nice mainstream response to Rachel Getting Married. It's got a lot of music, salty and sweet female leads, it's perfect, right? Ugh. No. You guys. I watched it. Remind me sometime, we'll talk. I also watched Baby Mama. That's a greater stretch, but mostly it's worth it.

Tina Fey works for a Whole Foodsish corporation who wants to keep everybody real and organic and fresh, and you know, corporate (her boss is Steve Martin, finally out of a family film and hilarious). Tina really wants a baby, and has decided it needs to happen now. She hires a surrogate (Amy Poehler), a woman who seems to have modeled her personality and wardrobe off of papparazzi shots of Britney Spears. Fey and Poehler as great together, as you already know, and if Hollywood were just a touch more female-centric, they'd have a future in buddy comedies. In the current climate, they're probably as likely to find another project together as Jonathan Demme is to film a sequel to Rachel Getting Married.

Of course Fey and Poehler are an odd couple, with Fey mortified at Poehler's lack of nutrition and discipline. You might note that I'm not using their character names. Listen, I think Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are great, talented ladies. But this isn't cinema verite here; you're no more likely to get swept up in the characterizations here than you would with a really good SNL sketch. Baby Mama is a quite traditional comedy with some smart lines, two very appealing leads, a handful of funny sight gags, and in the supporting performances of Sigourney Weaver and Greg Kinnear, the presence of two actors who can make me sit up just by walking on camera. Baby Mama was written and directed by Michael McCullers. It's a show of his talent that I assumed Tina Fey had written the script; he definitely knows the strengths and timing of his star. Baby Mama won't leave you bonded with the characters like Rachel Getting Married, but it'll make you laugh (and it's not My Best Friend's Wedding. Seriously, we need to talk.).

Rachel Getting Married: A

Baby Mama: B