It never rains, it pours. My screenwriting professor went on an extended monologue about the importance of determining “all sorts of ways in which your characters delude themselves.” Then he discussed the wide range of people’s definitions of “a lot.” He asked me what I considered would be “a lot of dates to have had in my lifetime.” For some devout Catholics or thirty-year-old virgins, three would be “a lot.” For some charming former playboy pimps and mimbos, 812 would be “a normal amount.”

I recently saw Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, a shaky but penetrating hand-held glimpse into a repressed Connnecticut family—is there any other kind? Kym (Anne Hathaway) is the explosive and tortured sister returning from her latest stint in rehab, caught in a wave of dysfunctional family dynamics for which she is the trigger. And it all takes place on the festive, and somewhat carnivalesque, occasion of her older sister’s wedding.

The film highlighted awkwardly long episodes of the following: a sober rehearsal dinner toast fraught with taboos, a divorced parent logistical mishap, a father vs. son in law dishwasher-loading competition, and a harmless but premeditated woodland car accident. In short—a realistic portrayal of Wasps in action.

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