Disobedience was directed by Sebastien Lelio, and stars Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola. The film is about a jewish woman, whose father has just died, but he was a rabbi and she has essentially abandoned the faith because of her attraction to other women. When she comes back she stays at her adoptive brother’s house and she finds out that her childhood lover has married him, but she decides to reconnect with her anyway. The film is making a political statement, but it doesn’t do it in an aggressive or distractingly forced way and I thought it was really well done and effective. It does make a lot of generalizations but I think that it made its point and made sense within the context of the film.
The story is really good and unique and surprisingly unpredictable. I love the mystery of the lead woman’s past, and I think it definitely makes her a more interesting character, because you’re never really sure what exactly happened to separate her from the culture and environment that she was raised in. The pacing in the film was surprisingly fast and the film never really lagged, I think it could have been a little bit shorter and there were moments that I think would have been a better ending, but other than that I really don’t have any problems with it. Like I said, I think the political message that it has was very well done without being too aggressive and I enjoyed it very much.
This is one of the most sexually explicit films that I have ever seen, it doesn’t hold back at all and I respect the film-maker and the actors for doing it this way. Some of the things that they did to each other were kind of gross but I won’t go into detail on them but it felt a little over the top. But I think that it made the film more fully realized and the characters were more realistic.
The characters are all really good! The lead woman, who is played by Rachel Weisz, was a really good character who had a lot of mystery which made her more compelling and Rachel Weisz delivered a fantastic performance. She was really good in the film, but she didn’t do a great job at emoting other emotions other than sadness. This might not have just been her this could have been the coloring of the film, but something about her just seemed like it was kind of unbelievable.
The other two lead actors in the film are really great however, and I kind of forgot I was watching a film because of them. Rachel McAdams is really fantastic and this is quite a departure from the other films that she has made, Doctor Strange, Sherlock Holmes, and Game Night and I respect her for making such a risky choice with this film. She was far more compelling than the lead character and I thought her character made some really good choices and I loved the way the film ended. Alessandro Nivola plays Rachel McAdam’s husband and he is also really fantastic, he also progresses in a really interesting and believable way and I liked the conclusion he comes to at the end.
The film-making wasn’t amazing but it was very competent and I really loved how some of the framing illustrated the idea of ‘choice’. The framing always seemed to have a character with two pathways or options to take and I thought it was a really nice way to illustrate the themes of the story. The music was also really cool and unique! It has a really different style and sound and I think that it was a great soundtrack for this film.
Overall I think this was a great film, I enjoyed watching it and I think if it sounds like something you would like than you should watch it. I don’t think that it is the most memorable film and it probably won’t stick with me for that long, but I did enjoy it. I will give Disobedience a 7 out of 10.
Finn Kane Reviews 