Anne Hathaway excels in sharp "Rachel Getting Married" ***1/2 stars out of 4

Prepare yourself for an Anne Hathaway that you never thought you would see. Sure, she has tried desperately to free herself from the G-rated kiddie ghetto with performances in the straight to video misstep Havoc and her brief yet forgotten role as Jake Gyllenhaal's frigid wife in Brokeback Mountain...but nothing will prepare you for the fireball she unleashes in Jonathon Demme's sharp and poignant Rachel Getting Married.

Hathaway plays Kym, an acid tongued wild child who is granted a brief release from drug rehab in order to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemary Dewitt), who is engaged to a black record producer (Tunde Adebimpe). Everyone in the Connecticut cauldesac where the wedding is taking place already knows Kym by reputation...and treats her as such.

It is not as though Kym is attempting to remedy that situation. On her first day home from rehab she greets her sister by commenting that she looks so thin that "I would swear to God you were puking again." She then leaves to attend an A.A. meeting and hooks up with the best man (Mather Zickel) who is also a recovering addict. She also has to deal with an overly doting father (the stellar Bill Irwin) and an emotionally distant mother (the underused Debra Winger) who are now both married to other people.

Throughout the film, Kym creates one cringe inducing moment after another, including a rehearsal dinner toast that will make you duck and cover. However, Hathaway never lets us get bored with her...we may be disgusted by Kym, but are never uninterested. We eventually learn that Kym's self destructive behavior stems from a tragic event in her past that consistently hovers above the events like a B-52 ready to drop the big one.

Does Rachel Getting Married have flaws? Absolutely. The rehearsal dinner scenes along with the scenes of the actual wedding go on for way too long and eventually lose our interest. The sections where Rachel Getting Married truly fly are usually where Kym and her colored history are allowed to take center stage. A confrontation with Kym and her mother will pin you to your chair, even if the images and language are hard to take. Hathaway and Winger play this scene for real and they both are completely exposed and exhausted...as are we.

Jonathon Demme has shot this film with a shaky digital handheld camera which is simultaneously headache inducing and strangely appropriate. Throughout the entire film, the audience is meant to feel as though we were eavesdropping on a dysfunctional household and the direction of Demme as well as the sharp screenplay by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney) allows us to achieve that feeling.

Above all however, this is Hathaway's show. She is long removed from her days as "The Princess Diary Chick," (I know that no one ever called her that...I did at least). She delivers a mature and heart-wrenching performance as Kym and shows that she does indeed have a bright future in this business. She is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and she does have my vote...even though I actually don't have one. Hathaway's soul baring experience is the most important reason to sit through Rachel Getting Married. A great actress giving a great performance in a great film will do that to you.

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