"DISOBEDIENCE" // TRIBECA 2018 REVIEW
To be able to step out of your life, to step back into the past is something some of us wish for. Some of us fear it all together. But most of us know that we are wholly different people than we were way back when. If we were to step back and try to rediscover that person, what would we find? It’s especially intriguing if your past recalls a very different version of you, perhaps a much more ridged person, a person who had not yet opened to the world, or a person surrounded by religion. The latter example is what makes up the plot of DISOBEDIENCE, Sebastián Lelio’s new yearning through conflict drama.
The setting is an Orthodox Jewish community in north London and a community who gathers together after the death of a revered rabbi (Anton Lesser). His daughter Ronit (Rachel Weisz) was shunned by the community years ago after her attraction to a childhood friend Esti (Rachel McAdams), who was also part of the community. She’s now a successful photographer in New York who decides to return home for her father’s funeral. She’s coming back for the first time since she left this community, and the world of Orthodox Judaism, behind. The community itself does not necessarily welcome her back with open arms, though her two best friends do: Esti and Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), who is now married to Ronit’s old flame and is the soon to be successor of her father. Esti and Ronit’s passion is rekindled with intimate looks across the room, stolen kisses and it threatens to upheave the entire community, and the world that Esi and Dovid have built for themselves.
DISOBEDIENCE is quiet and moody and searing with heartache, longing, and passion. The film wisely never discredits the religion and never makes them a villain. Instead, we do side with Ronit, and we do want to agree against their narrow views of society, but we still feel the love and passion they have themselves for their religious world. It’s a fascinating feeling watching the film, and one that’s elevated by three amazing performances. Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams have true chemistry together, and their push and pull is powerful to experience. You want them to rediscover each other and you long for the moment they do. That is both a great thing to see, and one that is a slight complaint as well, being that as the audience, you’re never not on Ronit’s side. A stronger argument from the community’s point of view would have been interesting to add a bit more mystery to the proceedings. None the less, it all works, and is kinetic. In lesser hands, Dovid’s character would be a cartoonish buffoon, a man who didn’t realize who his wife truly loved until it was too late, but in the tight scripting and Alessandro Nivola’s incredibly rooted performance, you are also with him every step of the journey and understand his pain and confusion just as much as Ronit’s and Esti’s. Beautiful cinematography adds to the power of the story, and it’s one that I highly recommend.
