First, Kym demands that she get upgraded from bridesmaid to maid of honor, deposing Rachel's best friend. Then, at the rehearsal dinner, Kym turns her toast to the bride and groom into a self-pity party. And then . . . well, you'll have to watch her up the emotional ante in this high-stakes contest. For most of the invited, the guests of honor are Rachel and Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe). But for Kym, it's all about her. You can see the resignation in Rachel's eyes. Sisters. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, can't kill 'em.
Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (actress and spawn of writer Gail Lumet Buckley and filmmaker Sidney Lumet), Demme choreographs a mostly accomplished ensemble to make his fiercest and most deeply satisfying film since Something Wild.
The bride is Caucasian, the groom African American, and the wedding theme Indian. Rachel originally was titled Dancing With Shiva - a reference to the Hindu deity of destruction and transformation. Perhaps that was because Kym is a human nuclear device, scattering bombs of rage as a flower girl strews rose petals, turning the leafy grounds of her father's Colonial into a war zone, shushing the troubadours on hand to play at the ceremony.
Eyes black-rimmed and sunken, Kym is the rabid raccoon that upsets the garbage cans and crashes the multi-culti party. As is so often the case in family feuds, one woman's garbage is another's precious keepsake; one man's feelings another's hissy fit.
Why are the apparently balanced Rachel and the evidently unstable Kym at odds? Demme and Lumet count the ways. They fight over the love of their embracing father, Paul (Bill Irwin). Over the attention of their estranged mother, Abby (Debra Winger). Over whose version of family dysfunction is the authoritative one.
