Dir: Sebastian Lelio | Cast: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola | Drama | Argentina | 110min
Sebastian Lelio’s latest is a dour and stifling drama worth watching only for Rachel Weisz as a refreshingly liberated soul who has broken free from her repressive upbringing in a Jewish orthodox community in Golders Green and the Suburb.
Once again Lelio explores female sexuality in its various guises – his lively Berlinale Golden Bear winner Gloria saw a vivacious middle aged divorcee discover her newfound freedom in modern day Montevideo; his second Berlinale winner A Fantastic Woman followed the fallout for a trans woman after her lover dies suddenly in Buenos Aires. Based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, and cleverly adapted by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida) and Lelio himself, Disobedience is a subdued and antiseptic affair stuck in a passionless winter of discontent in a grim suburban setting -Lelio’s visual energy washed away by the drab aesthetic of the film’s locale and it’s rather mawdlin story line. .
Rachel McAdams plays against type as the orthodox Esti, who harbours a sexual secret signalled by the tonal gloom of the films’ opening scenes in the family home: even though her rabbi husband Dov’s adoptive father Rav – a pillar of the community – has just died, there is clearly a skeleton in the cupboard making this couple subdued. To pay her respects to her father, successful photographer Ronit Krushka (Weisz) turns up energetically from New York to the surprise of everyone assembled – she left under a cloud years ago – and her reappearance sets passive aggressive tongues wagging and kippahs askew.
This intriguing set of affairs initially builds up a stealthy level or tension that soon gives way to tedium in the overplayed twists and turns of the rather unconvincing reveal. As Ronit, Rachel Weisz brings a welcome breath of fresh air to this buttoned-up milieu with some witty one-liners and knowing glances. Alessandro Nivola’s Dov is rather likeable and really resonates as the conflicted and cuckholded religious heir to his highly-regarded adoptive father ‘the Rav’ Krushka (Anton Lesser). But McAdams is the least convincing of the lead trio in a difficult one-dimensional role as a rather mousy and mumsy character whose repressed passion never really catches fires – and her three children are strangely completely absent from this family-centric environment. That said, the Orthodox Jewish set-up is brilliantly captured and authentic to last detail. Disobedience is mildly intriguing in its portrayal of religious orthodoxy and its contradictions in contemporary London. But as a love story it leaves you as cold as last week’s chopped liver. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 NOVEMBER 2018