It's pretty easy to compare this movie to the entire first half of Melancholia, as both films take place during some posh and elegant wedding weekends and both directors just kind of dove right into those wedding sequences to immerse the audience in the festivities and simply observe all kinds of different characters and their interactions. The comparisons more or less end there, though, as where Melancholia was dark and depressing, Rachel Getting Married gave off an indescribable inviting warmth of sorts.
That's not to say this was a bright and happy movie. Characters have all kinds of baggage and familial histories, grudges, and rivalries, and lots of Rachel Getting Married is just adults yelling at each other. Anne Hathaway plays Kym, the little sister and maid of honor to Rachel, who, of course, is getting married. Kym is selfish and unreliable, but she's also a drug addict struggling in rehab. This puts her in sharp contrast to the responsible and generally even-keeled Rachel, and the two spend a great deal of the movie arguing with each other and unloading years of baggage. Mom and Dad get in on the arguments, often turning on each other, and even a few bridal party members find the time to have some words. Still, while there's plenty of dysfunction here, it's such an honest and realistic dysfunction. These aren't bad people and their relationships aren't ugly.
Anyway, this isn't for everyone and I can't even say that I genuinely loved it, but I was in the right state of mind when I saw it, and for reasons I still can't fully articulate, it really worked, from my perspective.
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