Worth: $17.00
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Cast:
Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola
Intro:
The moral complexity, and the unresolvable messiness of torn loyalties, is artfully explored.
The term disobedience is twinned in our minds with its opposite. What constitutes correct obedience? To what, or to whom, should we be obedient? Should we obey a guiding principle? An ideology, or a religion? What if their commandments clash with our very nature?
Chilean director Sebastian Lelio is becoming an expert in crafting absorbing dramas from such fertile ground. His recently released A Fantastic Woman dealt with the reception that a transgender woman gets from her lover’s family. It was in many ways the careful portrait of prejudice which made the central overcoming even more winning. His latest finely-acted drama also examines the balance between accommodating a conservative view of sexual preference and the price of choosing your own path.
It is set in a long-established Orthodox Jewish community in a particular suburb of North London. The set-up is economically done. We know quite early on that the recently-deceased chief Rabbi (Anton Lesser) was a revered religious leader. His only daughter Ronit (Rachel Weisz) is now a successful photographer in New York but she left her home community with some issues unresolved. When she comes back for her father’s funeral and decides to stay with her step brother Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) and his young wife Esti (Rachel McAdams), there is bound to be friction.
Dovid is calm but welcoming. He firmly reminds Ronit that the most important thing is that the week’s ceremonies must be conducted with dignity. He fears that Ronit’s natural rebelliousness will disrupt things, and he fears too – perhaps without fully acknowledging it to himself – that Ronit will enflame an old longing in Esti. It is not a spoiler to allude to the fact that the two women were romantically involved before Ronit left for America.
Lelio’s portrayal of the Orthodox community is central to the film’s power. He shows its strengths as well as its potential for dogmatism. The big family meals are warm and humorous with the sometimes-spiky banter that is typical of families. When it comes to the representation of customs and beliefs that might appear – to an outsider at least – to be harsh or repressive, Lelio does resort to mere stereotyping.
The film is ultimately and undeniably on the side of the thwarted lovers, of course. However, this is not a matter of simply cheering for the underdog. The moral complexity, and the unresolvable messiness of torn loyalties, is artfully explored.
