With all of the dramatic and sexual stuff in the film, the best scene may very well be a group scene early on, when Ronit joins Dovid and Esti's Shabbat, attended by a small group of Ronit's relatives. McAdams is miscast, but she does a fine job showing Esti's burgeoning emotional life, exploding out of her in a rush: it is as though time stopped for her when Ronit fled the community so many years ago. These all feel like real people, not caricatures. So straight, though, it is sometimes a detriment. The rabbi who dropped dead was Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser), an important figure in the London Orthodox Jewish community. Dovid and Etsi don't yet have children. Foreground the theme. as Rabbi Dovid Kuperman, Get Lost in the Experience of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Kaley Cuoco Stars in the Highly Entertaining The Flight Attendant on HBO Max, The Mandalorian Chapter 13 Recap: The Child Has a Name, Chaz Ebert Debuts Song I Remember People, Performed Quarantine-Style by The Chicago Soul Spectacular. Because she has learned of the death of her father, a much-respected rabbi: a fierce, potent cameo for Anton Lesser. These obvious choices really stick out. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here. McAdams herself is excellent at suggesting how with sheer force of will and learned piety she had got her life together while Ronit was away and is now a schoolteacher. Rather daringly, he is teaching the Song Of Songs in his own scriptural class and permitting candid discussion of its erotic qualities. Disobedience is a nice example of a film that displays a forbidden but passionate love story from a fascinating point of view, the religious angle. "Disobedience," Sebastián Lelio ’s follow-up to his 2017 Oscar-winning film " A Fantastic Woman," and his first English-language film, starts with a Rabbi giving a sermon about free will. But he is not a tyrant or a bully and he is himself conflicted in various ways about Ronit’s reappearance. She is a teacher in a girls school and enjoys her work. he question of whose disobedience, and what kind of disobedience it is, are at the heart of this absorbing and moving love story from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, his English language debut, following very quickly on the heels of his film A Fantastic Woman which has been a festival-circuit hit this year. Then he drops dead. In a 1950s film, she'd play a perky ingenue. In the bedroom, before sex, Esti had listlessly removed not just her clothes but her wig: the badge of female piety. It doesn't reach the scope of Grand Tragic Romance, but then, it isn't meant to. But the truth must be faced up to, and a much-feared homecoming is necessary. This is a family. The Children Act review – Emma Thompson rules over hot-button legal drama. The culture is shown as a close one, with many social benefits, benefits which Ronit—in leaving—has missed out on. You could see why she wanted to stay, why she had to stay.). He says, fearsomely, that humans are "free to choose." The drama is expertly controlled by Lelio, lit and shot in muted and subdued colour tones by cinematographer Danny Cohen and it has a very interesting musical score by Matthew Herbert; its musing and almost playful woodwind figures cut against the expected sombreness and obvious melancholy to contribute to this sense of disorientation and subversion. A lively debate occurs, and when Esti pops in unexpectedly with a cutting observation, Ronit stares at her from across the table, thrilled. She knows what the depths are, but she can't get there in the way a Lili Taylor, or Elizabeth Moss, or Natalie Portman could. The shock on Weisz's face is eloquent, although we don't know the backstory yet. She forgets herself and almost hugs him in a friendly greeting, and then laughs when he recoils from her touch. Dovid and his young rabbinical students discuss sensuous love and its importance, and Esti discusses "Othello" with her students. Dovid and Esti invite Ronit to stay with them during her time in London. One is Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), her father’s favourite pupil, a virtual adopted son who is now a much admired young rabbi himself. Underline as you go. The poignancy of her dad’s modest family home and his death bed, moved downstairs to the front room in his final days, reinforces the severity and austerity of Ronit’s family background - and also how sensationally transgressive her renewed affair with Esti is. There's something refreshing about a story so unconcerned with "subtlety." The relationship between Ronit and Esti, past and present, is clearly the focal point of the film, but Lelio takes his time getting there. This is richly satisfying and powerfully acted work. "Disobedience" could have gone even further in the direction of "Stella Dallas"-melodrama torment. He speaks of angels, beasts, and Adam and Eve. Ronit's arrival throws everything into confusion. In a way, time stopped for the both of them. Put it all out there. Then he drops dead. It stings. But when she has to show Esti's anguish at being forced to marry in order to cure her of wanting to sleep with women, she can't get to the depths required. This is playing with fire, since it soon becomes clear that Esti and Ronit had an adolescent romance, well-known to the community at the time. "Disobedience," based on Naomi Alderman's novel (with adaptation by Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz) is a good old-fashioned melodrama, albeit with a quieter touch. She is rebelliously secular, with long free hair, cigarettes, short leather skirts. Disobedience works much better when the director lets McAdams and Weisz play their feelings out through soft glances and subtle touches. The "mood" at the table is far from friendly or warm, but it's also not toxic. "Exposition" wouldn't be spoken out loud in this crowd since everyone knows everything about everyone else. The drama takes place in the Orthodox Jewish community of north London. He says, fearsomely, that humans are "free to choose." Even the strict culture of Orthodox Judaism isn't really a villain. It's the kind of movie where teachers are shown giving lectures which directly comment on the action of the movie. Back in London for the various ceremonies - the very epitome of the religious observance and obedience that she had wanted to get away from - Ronit feels all eyes on her: curious, and disapproving, but in a way cowed by her authentic connection with this revered religious leader. There an overwhelming passion and eroticism to this reunion, especially in contrast to the dutiful marital lovemaking between Dovid and Esti which Lelio had already shown us: trying of course for a baby. He is set to step into Rav Krushka's sizable shoes. Toronto film festival 2017 Disobedience review – Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams impress in powerful love story The English language debut from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio is … Ronit is disturbed most by two friends from the old days, from whom she senses a nervous disapproval. The other is Esti, beautifully played by Rachel McAdams, who was Ronit’s only ally in youthful rebelliousness back in the day. But cinema can make melodrama seem not just real, but urgent and relevant. Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. He speaks of angels, beasts, and Adam and Eve. People have a habit of remarking, in tones of awe, how much she resembles her late mother. The colors of the film are subdued and chilly, all blacks, greys, smoky-blues, so that at times it looks like a black-and-white photograph. The English language debut from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio is a rich and rewarding drama about a woman returning home to the Orthodox Jewish community of north London, Last modified on Fri 30 Nov 2018 10.00 EST. "A Fantastic Woman" featured many surreal dreamlike images, but Lelio plays this one straight. They could easily be more than friends again and the movie adroitly lets us decide just how open a secret their relationship always was. In one scene in "A Fantastic Woman," Aretha's "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman" is prominently featured, and in a scene in "Disobedience," to break an awkward silence with Esti, Ronit spins the dial on the radio and stops on The Cure's "Love Song," which just so happens to narrate perfectly the emotions of the moment. She's wonderful here when showing mischievous delight sneaking a puff off Ronit's cigarette. You go to watch humans with wayward emotions labor to … There's an awkward moment in the kitchen when she makes the connection. In "A Fantastic Woman," a trans woman fought to be allowed to grieve for her dead lover, and Lelio's focus on the cruelty of the surrounding world pushed the film into a nightmare-scape. Exposition is always awkward, so Lelio doesn't bother with it at all. She's been gone so long she had no idea that Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), taken in by her father as a protégé at 13, and Esti, her childhood friend (Rachel McAdams) have gotten married. Weisz conveys her grief, her disorientation, her borderline-hysterical need to mock the pieties. (In this way, it reminded me a little bit of Peter Weir's "Witness," where you could see why Rachel didn't just run away with the cop, leaving the Amish world behind.