The intersecting stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—and their connection through the music business in Nashville, Tennessee.
The sense of homage/pastiche goes further still: if the rambling ensemble construction derives from Nashville , the swooping long takes and whiplash pans come courtesy of Scorsese.
With its emphasis on pornography's people and period not, as will be assumed, the process the film is strongly reminiscent of the distinctly American sagas Nashville, GoodFellas, City of Hope and Pulp Fiction (big, complicated yet personal movies all, as this one very much is).
The film's unofficial family group is immersed in exploitation movies, which becomes the same collective eccentricity that country music was for "Nashville."
The influence of Robert Altman remains strong with Anderson (who served as a “backup director” on the then-octogenarian master’s “Prairie Home Companion”), to the extent that this feels like his most direct attempt at channeling the “Nashville” helmer’s semi-improvisatory approach — a bold tack for someone working with two inexperienced actors in their first lead roles.
The last act of the movie is set in and around the mayoral campaign of a young, skilled, ostensibly progressive Valley politician (played by Uncut Gems codirector Benny Safdie) and evokes period political dramas like The Candidate , with a little bit of Taxi Driver and Nashville sprinkled in.
But, in what could be intended as an homage to Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” the movie is overstuffed with supporting characters, subplots and non-chronological timelines within timelines.
Chris Hewitt, Star Tribune•Star Tribune•Mar 5, 2020
But unlike films such as "Shortcuts" and "Nashville," "Syriana" engages in so much complexity and so much depth that to fully comprehend the plot, you may need a master's in political science.
The best ensemble films are the ones in which the characters are given an opportunity to breathe ( Magnolia , Short Cuts , and Nashville come to mind).
Although the movie's fate-binds-us-all scheme (an integral component of these multilayered, multi-character dramas from "Nashville" to "Magnolia") may strike some as manipulated coincidence, the big picture, the passing truths and the overall suspense are too omnisciently compelling for any of that to matter.
In true Altmanesque style, a 'la "Nashville" and "Short Cuts," "Happiness" interweaves several different stories together into a perfectly-woven tapestry that is admittedly quite ironic, since the title of the film is the farthest possible feeling away that any of the miserable characters presented here could be.
El problema era, siempre, que más que una integración coral genuina como en los filmes del gran Robert Altman (Nashville, 1975), el resultado final se veía fragmentado y difuso, dejando que el evento como tal se alzara como protagonista.
With its rambling plot carved from the minutiae of details, its overpopulated landscape of neurotic characters, its speeded-up handheld camera tricks and its overlapping music and dialogue, Rachel Getting Married cannot fail to remind you of every Altman, from Nashville to A Wedding, but I didn’t find it as annoying and self-indulgent as those films, and to my taste, it’s a great deal more engaging.
It’s Nashville, only looking at the whole of America through politics and social media instead of politics and music. That said, at least Nashville offered some escape through song.