Disobedience

2018 romantic drama

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Upon the death of her father, a woman shunned by her Jewish community for reasons that aren't fully explained right off the bat reconnects with an old friend. The poster probably gives too much away.

This is a little too on the nose, and it's right from the get-go with a sermon about beasts and angels and human beings falling somewhere between the two and free will and dropping dead mid-sentence. Emotions and themes are spelled out for you, probably a good thing since none of the performances really do much to show you what the screenplay is working too hard to tell you. The performances are stiff, dispassionate, and stilted, and yes, I'm aware that that's all part of the point, but when things heat up--sexually, emotionally, or what-have-you--it was almost impossible to buy.

It's possible the movie needed another Rachel. Weisz was in a better 2018 movie in which she had lesbian tendencies. McAdams tries on an English accent which doesn't quite seem to fit her. They have zero chemistry, and no amount of grunting, which both of them spend considerable amounts of time doing, or spitting in each other's mouths did much to convince me otherwise. I like both actresses, but here, every line, every glance, and every movement seemed forced or overly directed.

This is Sebastian Lelio's follow-up to Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner A Fantastic Woman, something I never got around to seeing. That movies doesn't have a single Rachel in it.