Rachel Getting Married (2008)

This was an interesting film as the plot was complex and not really straight-forward and some of the main points were implied.
Kym (Anne Hathaway, brilliant) has just been released from rehab. She is fetched by her father (Bill Irwin) and step-mother (Anna Deavere Smith). The reason she is going home is because her sister, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is getting married and may or may not have an eating disorder but is most certainly pregnant (doesn't anyone do things in the right order these days?), thus the title of the film. Her groom is the African American Sidney Williams (Tunde Adebimpe) who is very nice. However, with all the excitement of the upcoming nuptials, Kym is constantly battling her inner demons as she has had many addictions, from pills to food to alcohol. Her tragic past is eventually revealed as the movie continues: she was driving home from the park with her younger brother, Ethan, but she was completely stoned. She drove the car over a bridge and couldn't unbuckle him from his car seat and he drowned. The guilt she feels continues to this day and some members of the family, namely Rachel, won't forgive her. The arguments that Rachel and Kym have are nasty and Kym embarrasses Rachel. In fact, she has asked her friend, the nasty Emma (Anisa George) to be her maid of honor and doesn't want her at the family table, after all, it would mean there would be an odd number at that table. And that is just forbidden. (This scene only slightly upset me, in case you couldn't tell.)
However, the main conflict arises when Kym goes to visit her mother (Debra Winger). She demands to know why she was entrusted with her younger brother when her mother knew of her damaging issues. It appears (as my mom said) that her mother most likely set her up for failure. This issue is never fully resolved as Mother and her new husband leave the wedding early because they have a business trip planned.
After the nasty fight with Mother, she leaves the house in a huff and drives her car through a road sign and then crashes into a rock. Luckily, she is sober when all that happened so she's able to make it back in time for the wedding. 
There is another interesting incident. While getting her hair done, Kym is approached by this weird guy whom she used to know in therapy. He tells her that he got her anonymous confession and he reveals to her her secret confession. It was all a lie, she was never molested and her sister never had a serious eating problem. This angers Rachel greatly.
Throughout all of this, Kym has an interesting relationship with the best man, Sidney's good friend Kiernan (Mather Zickel) who also attends AA meetings.
The film is quite good, but I have my issues with it. The wedding (though it is part of the title) takes the focus away from Kym's inner journey. Anne Hathaway is brilliant as the eternally damaged Kym (better here than in Les Miserables) and fully deserved her Oscar nomination as her face is a blank slate, showing every emotion, from happiness to disgust to sheer terror and sadness. At the end, she goes off with the nurse from the rehab center and hopefully, this time, she will be able to rebuild her life, with or without her family's help.
The film itself is interesting with great camera angles and music. The wedding is also one of the most interesting and weirdest I've ever seen (in real life and in the movies) as it is a multicultural wedding with music spanning the genres. The performances here are all top-notch, and Rosemarie DeWitt and perhaps even Bill Irwin were robbed of Oscar nominations. Irwin is especially great in a scene where he and his soon-to-be son-in-law have a competition to see who can stack the dishwasher better and faster. It was a nice reprieve from the drama of the film, but it was ruined by looking at a plate that had Ethan's name on it. Still, I wish Kym had truly been the focus of this film and things would have been tied up with her mother, yet an excellent film. Grade: A-