Get ready for Anne Hathaway, dropping the pretty decorations of The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada to reinvent herself as an actress with real dramatic chops. She’s raw and riveting as Kym, a long drink of trouble fresh out of rehab to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (the superb Rosemarie DeWitt). If you know rehab, you know the main thing is to avoid triggers that might rekindle your dependency on alcohol, drugs, sex, you name it. Sky-high on Kym’s trigger list are home and family, and yet here she is in the thick of both... Kym’s father, Paul (a heartfelt Bill Irwin), and her aloof mother, Abby (Debra Winger), both remarried, expect disaster. Ditto Rachel, about to wed black music producer Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe)...

Expect comparisons to Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding and Robert Altman’s A Wedding, but [director Jonathan] Demme lacks their readiness to go for the jugular. Demme doesn’t sell hope, but he’s not hawking despair, either. As the musicians play – watch for percussionist Zafer Tawil and Demme regulars Robyn Hitchcock and Sister Carol – restorative harmony makes a case against the darkness.

The acting is of the highest caliber. Winger, magnificent and too long between films, is a volcano of repressed anger... And Hathaway will surely have Oscar calling. Quicksilver feelings play exquisitely on her haunted face. Her clown’s smile, evident in a comic trip to a hair salon and a dishwasher-loading contest, drops like a mask when the past intrudes and attacks. It’s a great bear of a role, and Hathaway acts the hell out of it, achieving a state of sorrowful grace..

Brimming with stinging laughs and tears, and swirling, healing music (a Demme specialty), the film holds you spellbound. Props to the funny, touching and vital script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of the great director Sidney Lumet...) that allows characters to charm and sometimes bully us into recognition.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

”Demme and cinematographer Declan Quinn set out to make a film that looks like the most beautiful home movie ever made, and they succeed. The cameras, often operated by actors on the set, seem to stalk the characters, and scenes unfold in long, apparently unrehearsed takes. This strategy results in almost unbearable intensity, exacerbated by a tragedy still haunting the family of the bride, but it’s leavened by the wedding itself, which, with its super-cool guests and fabulous music, is the kind of party you wish you could be invited to.” — Susan G. Cole, Now