Anne Hathaway stars in this film about a girl who takes a break from rehab to come home for her older sister's wedding. This isn't a film that you sit back and watch, but rather one you experience. It had this odd effect where it drew me in to the story and made me feel like I was a guest for the weekend. I felt like I was right there along with the characters experiencing these very awkward situations. Part of this is because of the way it was shot. It uses a hand-held camera style, but like pro hand-held; It isn't shaky at all. It really succeeded in making you feel like you were part of the action, without forcing you to notice it was using that type of camera the entire time. Another reason I was drawn in was because of the great acting by main characters. The father and two sisters do a great job. There were some very uncomfortable scenes they did really well with. I don't really know how to judge acting, but I will say that the characters felt very sincere, and I felt empathy for both sides of the argument. For me that means that the actor had to be fairly successful. Overall this was a great character film that invites you to join their family for a couple of hours and feel the stress and frustration that is associated with planning a wedding and dealing with the skeletons in your closet. Of course, this film cannot escape without some criticism. This movie was really good, but there were a few things that bothered me about it. First off, there are some scenes that just go on for way too long. The rehearsal dinner was a great scene, but it overstayed its welcome for me. It started to get tedious and I was very happy to move on to the next scene. The wedding reception also goes on way too long. The feeling was communicated within the first 3 minutes of singing and dancing. We really didn't need the other 10 minutes or so that was tacked on there. I also didn't like how the older sister was in school to be a psychologist. We are watching them deal with family issues, you don't have to make one of them a psychologist. That just seemed a little hokey to me. With that being said, it was still a very good movie, and definitely worth watching.
-deric
Filed Under: Drama