Disobedience is about Ronit (Weisz), a photographer in New York City,
who finds out that her father has died. Her father, a popular Rabbi in his
community, hasn't spoken to Ronit in years and kept his sickness a secret from
her. Once Ronit gets word of his death, she returns to the Orthodox Jewish
community in England that she left behind years ago. It doesn't take long for
her to remember why she left in the first place. There is one person she's
pleased to see again: her old friend and, it turns out, lover Esti (McAdams),
who is now married to Ronit's other old friend, Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), who
is set to take her father's place as the new Rabbi. So, Ronit gets to deal with
her feelings for Esti resurfacing at the same time that she's grappling with
not being able to say goodbye to her father. Needless to say, there's a lot of
emotions flying around in this one.
I thought about avoiding mention of the lesbian
angle of the film. Even though it's all over the advertising for it (take one
look at the poster),
the movie curiously sets it up like a surprise. Early on, it's played like
Ronit and Dovid used to be an item. It takes a while before it's revealed that
Esti is her old love, not Dovid. As a twist, it's handled slyly in the movie,
but it's doubtful that anyone who plans on seeing this would come in blind to
that. So, I don't know if I can be mad at the marketing for spoiling that.
Disobedience does a great job setting up all the dominoes but has no
idea how to knock them all down. I enjoyed the first two acts when Esti and
Ronit decide if they should rekindle their romance, Dovid becomes aware of
their relationship, and Ronit finds out what's in her father's will. The story
sputtered in the third act. The best comparison I can come up with is it's like
when you are listening to someone tell you a story and they forget the word
they want to use and get struck dumb until they can come up with the right
word. The third act feels like that pause I think Disobedience has
something very profound that is wants to say, but it can't figure out how to
say it. It's strange, because this is based on a novel. I'm curious if the
novel had as much trouble sticking the landing or if it has an end that's hard
to translate into film. Because of the ending problem, the film drags a bit. I
got impatient by the end.
There's a lot of Judaism in this, which was all very
foreign to me. I wonder how much I missed just because I wasn't familiar with
certain practices or terminology. Sebastian Lelio does a terrific job bringing
the audience into this world without over-explaining things. He isn't looking up
to or down at the people. I feel like he did his research.
The central trio of Weisz, McAdams, and Kuperman do
a great job. The film avoids melodrama and doesn't paint anyone as a villain. I
was reminded a lot of Take This Waltz, which is high praise. Ultimately,
I was underwhelmed by the message of it all (or lack thereof) which tanked a
lot of the rest of it.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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