RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

RYAN: It stars Anne Hathaway as Rachel’s sister, and her performance reaches dramatic heights such that we’ve never seen from her before. She’s already getting Oscar buzz. Since I come from the camp of “Anne Hathaway can do no wrong,” I definitely hope she gets nominated.

CAROLINE: She’s not my favorite, but she’s very good in this, as are all the other actors. The casting was stellar and a lot of scenes seemed ad libbed. It took me a minute to realize the mom was Debra Winger. We haven’t seen her in a while, and she’s aging very well.

RYAN: She makes very few movies these days. I think she was even retired for a while. She and Anne are incredible on screen together.

CAROLINE: I also really liked the relationship between Anne’s character, Kym, and her sister, which is contentious to say the least. Kym is a recovering drug addict and there were many scenes in which I hated her with such a passion that I thought she was mine own sister and I wanted to kill her.

RYAN: And you don’t even have a sister! Interestingly, this movie was produced by Marc Platt, who produced Broadway’s “Wicked,” which makes me happy because maybe Anne is now on his radar to play Elphaba in the film version of “Wicked.”

CAROLINE: I also loved the guy who plays the best man in the wedding. He looked familiar to me. Maybe a little Robbie Williams-ish.

RYAN: I don’t see that at all. There’s a cameo from Emily Ashford who you and I saw together in “Legally Blonde” on Broadway, and she’s currently playing Glinda in the Chicago company of “Wicked.”

CAROLINE: Who cares? She has one line. This is a very powerful movie, but it also kind of sucks the life out of you. There are a couple funny scenes but mostly it’s a very emotional family drama. I loved parts of it, like Anne Hathaway’s N.A. meetings; but a lot of it was pretty wrenching. This movie is gonna hit close to home for a lot of people. If you have an addict in your life, you may not want to see this.

RYAN: It’s the kind of role Nicole Kidman would have done in her early twenties. It’s a small movie, but very intense and dramatic. Two things irritated me though – one was how ugly Rachel’s husband-to-be was.

CAROLINE: He’s the lead singer of some band called “TV on the Radio” in real life.

RYAN: Whatever. I’d like to have seen a hotter actor in the role. And the second thing was the music. They did this thing I’ve never seen before in a movie where the soundtrack is built into the movie. The characters are playing music on screen because the dad in the movie is some big music producer so all their friends are musicians. So you see and hear them playing throughout, which was cute at first; but after a while, I wanted to walk into the screen, strangle the musicians and put them to rest.

CAROLINE: [laughs’ The wedding is this very multi-culti hippy dippy affair, and all the guests are very musical and theatrical. Tamyra Gray from “American Idol” even makes a little singing cameo. And Daphne Rubin-Vega from Broadway’s “Rent” was in it for two seconds.

RYAN: How did I miss that?

CAROLINE: I don’t know. At first, I was way into the music too and thinking it was so cool how all their friends were so artsy and it was such a diverse, interesting wedding. But then there’s a scene at the wedding where all these different types of songs are being played and it goes on forever.

RYAN: It was interminable! It felt like half an hour. I felt like I was sitting alone at a wedding listening to this random music go on and on. I was like, “Seriously, what is the point?” I kept thinking that during each song the movie was about to end, but it kept going and going. It was ridiculous. Bottom line?

CAROLINE: It’s a very dramatic film, certainly not for the faint of heart. Ultimately, it’s a movie about sacrifice and redemption and family and making amends. I enjoyed parts of it and even got a little misty at times, but the music scenes were just too much. I was done with the wedding way before it ended. It’s very well acted, and the director Jonathan Demme is a genius, of course, though his films haven’t been so hot lately. It’s a little heavy-handed though, and dramatic to the point where I almost couldn’t take it.

RYAN: I developed a headache whilst watching it. I felt like I needed to lie down; it’s that intense. But I’m hoping it’s a career-making role for one Anne Hathaway.

CAROLINE: She’s already a movie star.

RYAN: I know, but I want her to win awards. Overall, I liked this movie in parts but it’s ridiculously long in others. But for a very dramatic film, it’s pretty good.