For some strange reason, during the first act preparations for Rachel's wedding, I was expecting Nicole Kidman to come strolling through the door off her set of "Margot at the Wedding." But kidding aside, what we might be witnessing here is the birth of talky marriage stories with weighty family issues as a subgenre of the romantic comedy.

As a director with credits that are nothing less than momentous ("The Silence of the Lambs"), Jonathan Demme seems to be in documentary mode these days with a more recent string of films examining musical and political acts and personalities, such as "The Pretenders," "Bruce Springsteen," "Neil Young," and a former president of the United States and political agitator, ("Jimmy Carter Man from Plains").

Which may explain why he'd choose to film debuting screenwriter Jenny Lumet's story 100% with hand-held cameras that, on occasion, film each other. The technique is employed even when shots could be made from a steady support.

The result is something of a Dramamine-needed experience of shaky, wobbly angles on the wedding party roasting and toasting Rachel and Sidney (Rosemarie DeWitt and Tunde Adebimpe), the happy couple, and the binding together of their white and black families. This provides the surface of the crowded, sometime sickeningly over-detailed festivities in the rambling home of daddy Paul (Bill Irwin), but not the emotional core of the story.

Rachel's sister Kym is where that's at. She's sprung from the rehab center just in time to rejoin the family at this happy hour, but like a rip current that drags the unprepared swimmer into a sea of submerged turbulence, her presence keeps the ceremonial activities on a boil. Love-hate tensions between the sisters surface and, with a sort of finality at Kym's confrontation with Abby (Debra Winder), her mother, the real tragedy that underlies the family history is explosively exposed.

Curiously, the accidental drowning of Kym's young brother while in her charge doesn't explain the causes of her addiction, since she was high and out of control when it occurred. Perhaps it had to do with a young girl trying to cope with the tearing apart of the family when her mother and father divorced.

My regard for Hathaway has shifted as much as a presidential nominee's policy. Call me a flip-flopper. After seeing her in "The Devil Wears Prada" I was so underwhelmed that I had zero interest in seeing the actress again. Fortunately, I did, and her Agent 99 in "Get Smart" knocked me off my opinionated seat. Suddenly supercharged with energy, personality and kick-ass comedic timing that all but took over the joint, I couldn't wait to see her again.

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Her Rachel brings Hathaway's range of talent to a whole other level--one of in-the-moment depth and vulnerability. Her silent reactive expression during group therapy is one highlight of an actor's revelation of the reality of a character. Clearly, she leaves no need here for the likes of Nicole Kidman, and makes it quite obvious that we'll be seeing a great deal more of her in the near future.

Some of Demme's other casting makes it notable that he wasn't going for standard choices. His use of Debra Winger after a three year hiatus and a declining career was astute and paid off grandly. But Adebimpe as the awkward bridegroom, who is more a singer than an actor and hardly a mainstream one at that, indicates that the director was putting the adequate delivery of a song before charismatic appeal in a sustained role--a criterion that wasn't necessarily in the best interests of his film.

The big-cast ensemble and improvisational nature of the piece plays, too, as an echo of Altman, who'd probably smile kindly on it--though this doesn't diminish screenwriter Jenny Lumet's original work, largely based on her family, which includes director father Sidney's proclivities.

In the end, the roving camerawork becomes the instrument for thematic rambling and a confined, suffocating marital drama that sparkles with the family treasure--Hathaway's breakout emotional magnetism.

                                      ~~  Jules Brenner