Stars: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Mather Zickel, Anna Deavere Smith, Arisa George, Debra Winger
Running time: 113 mins
Rating: ★★★

AS the title tells you, Rachel is getting married. All the family is going to be there, including the bride’s sister Kym who’s getting out of rehab especially for the occasion.

How long, you wonder, before skeletons are falling out of the cupboard? Jenny Lumet’s script doesn’t disappoint. As dysfunctional families go, the Buchman’s are up there with the Addams family.

Director Jonathan Demme is a difficult man to pin down with a CV taking in such diverse movies as thrillers like The Silence Of The Lambs to documentary Swimming To Cambodia via AIDs drama Philadelphia and disastrous Charade remake The Truth About Charlie. Rachel Getting Married has elements of them all, as well as having music – with live musicians as part of the background – an integral part of the action.

Making it look like a home movie sets it apart from your usual sitcom/romcom.

Anne Hathaway dumps the Princess Diaries look once and for all as Kym, the twitchy sister with more than one bad habit who beds the best man and badmouths the maid of honour.

Equally good is Rosemarie DeWitt as the bride whose happy day threatens to end in disaster, and it’s good to see Debra Winger back on screen as the estranged mother of the bride who ends up in a fight.