This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 17, 2008 - Ask somebody why they didn't like a particular movie, and they might say, "I didn't like the main character."
Is that a legitimate complaint about a film? And do we even have to like and/or admire the protagonist to like the film?
In general, the most popular Hollywood movies feature eminently likeable, admirable main characters. Most of the 20 all-time box-office hits, such as the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" movies and blockbuster Biblical epics like "Ben-Hur" and "The Ten Commandments," feature old-fashioned heroes who embody the forces of good (even if Anakin Skywalker of the "Star Wars" prequels eventually heads for the dark side).
But how about "Gone With The Wind?," which is often listed as the most popular theatrical release of all time? We don't hate Scarlett O'Hara, and we may find her fascinating and spunky in her monomaniacal, manipulative determination to "never be hungry again," but like her? Indeed, the emotional climax of the movie comes when the rounder Rhett Butler finally gets so fed up with her he walks out her door, to the cheers of the audience.
How about the first two "Godfather" movies, which are immensely popular as well as critically acclaimed. Most people don't "like" mob bosses Vito and Michael Corleone. Viewers may understand the forces that made the men the way they are, and perceive qualities in them that we admire in others (loyalty, perseverance, intelligence, an acute grasp of human nature). And we may understand and appreciate the fact that the "Godfather" movies are pungent commentaries on the American Dream, and on how far some people, not just gangsters, will go to achieve it. But the Corleones are neither admirable nor likeable, yet people love the movies about them.
As for independent films, if you insist on liking the main character, you are going to find yourself repeatedly disappointed. You are not supposed to like the child molester desperately trying to control his urges played by Kevin Bacon in "The Woodsmen," or the vituperative verbal assassin played by David Thewlis in "Naked." But you might enjoy these movies because they give revealing glimpses into the lives of complex, psychologically tortured human beings, people who may share more qualities with the rest of us than we are willing to admit.
Does anybody like the insatiably greedy oil baron played with such malignant gusto by Daniel Day Lewis in last year's "There Will Be Blood?" Still, critics and the Motion Picture Academy loved the movie, and it took in $40 million, which is real money for an independent picture. People can like - indeed, love - a movie and still dislike, even be repulsed by, the protagonist.
Which brings us -- at, admittedly, long last -- to "Rachel Getting Married," which opens Oct. 24. "Rachel Getting Married" takes place over a wedding weekend in an upper-middle-class home in Connecticut. Director Jonathan Demme has said that one of the things he liked about the script by Jenny Lumet was "her lack of concern for making her characters likeable in the conventional sense."
The main protagonist of "Rachel Getting Married" is not Rachel but Rachel's sister, Kym, an addict played with compelling intensity by Anne Hathaway. Her abrasive, self-pitying performance has stirred talk of an Oscar nomination. As the movie begins, Kym is precariously clean, leaving rehab to attend her sister's wedding. But she is still a mess, shaky with the residue of her long addiction, so totally self-absorbed that she keeps finding herself hijacking the wedding with her own problems, real or confabulated, and her obsessive flair for melodrama.
No matter how much she tries to will herself to stay in the background, and no matter how much her family members try to placate and reassure her, her paranoia and volcanic anger and guilt push her into attacking her father and mother and sister for not loving her enough.
In his long career, Jonathan Demme has gone from quirky critical favorites like "Melvin and Howard," to big-budget blockbusters like "The Silence of the Lambs," to remakes of films like "The Manchurian Candidate." Lately, he has spent most of his time making documentaries, including an ongoing project in post-Katrina New Orleans. And "Rachel Getting Married," shot on hand-held video, often looks like a documentary. Demme has said that he and cinematographer Declan Quinn wanted "Rachel Getting Married" to look like "the most beautiful home movie ever made," and they succeed in capturing the caught-on-the-fly feeling they were after, which is both good news and bad news.
The cast, which includes such fine actors as Bill Irwin as Kym's father and Debra Winger as her mother -- both characters seemingly bear some responsibility for Kym's dysfunction -- was encouraged to let the scenes flow. Demme truly captures the warmth of a gathering of two families on a happy occasion as well as the consternation that darkens the mood when Kym acts like a spoiled child. But at times he seems so charmed by the activities, such as a wedding rehearsal dinner that seems to go on for hours, that he belabors us with situations that we all are all too familiar with, and that we may not want to revisit at such length. You may not have to like the main characters to enjoy a movie, but you have to like, if not love, the participants to enjoy a rehearsal dinner.
The problem with "Rachel Getting Married" is not that we don't like Kym. Hathaway gives a convincing performance, and we come to understand her through the movie. And the movie is well worth seeing, in part for its performances (Debra Winger is spectacular as Kym's emotionally careless mother).
But the movie has a problem. It needs some of the very element Demme wanted to avoid - dramatic structure that gives us some idea of just why were are benefiting from watching this family come together in happiness, only to be driven apart by discord. What's the point of another home movie about a dysfunctional family and a wedding?
What we need is a real movie with a real story and characters who don't become tiresome before all is said and done.