Rachel disobeys the rules...
Devout Jews, a lesbian affair and one extremely unorthodox sex scene...
Disobedience Cert: 15A 1hr 54mins ★★★★★
Rachel Weisz is having quite a year, both personally and professionally. After all, it’s only three months since she and her James Bond-star husband, Daniel Craig, became proud parents and now, professionally speaking, she has two very different but nonetheless top-quality films being released just a few weeks apart. Both stand decent chances of awards success and both, rather more unexpectedly, feature lesbian relationships.
But while The Favourite – out at New Year – is all high camp, courtly repartee and Olivia Colman being very funny indeed, Disobedience, which Weisz has also co-produced, is far more measured, ultimately delivering an impassioned plea for tolerance and acceptance even within the most devout of patriarchal religious groups.
If that makes it sound dry… well, it is a little. But the Chilean director Sebastián Lelio also skilfully exposes the most painful of love triangles as well as delivering the sort of startling sex scene that left some male critics not only not knowing quite where to look but, at one particularly arresting moment, scratching their heads in puzzlement. Was this some sort of taboo-trampling Jewish thing? A lesbian thing? Or just a sex thing? The internet, I’m sure, will enlighten us.
All that, however, lies in the future as the drama – based on a novel by Naomi Alderman – begins in a thoroughly mysterious way, with the beautiful Ronit (Weisz) returning to north London from her glamorous life as a photographer in New York following the sudden death of her father, a highly respected rabbi and spiritual teacher known as ‘the Rav’.
A daughter returning to the family home after the death of her father – what could be more natural than that? But why is the handsome younger rabbi (Alessandro Nivola) who we initially assume is her brother, so uncomfortable in her presence? Why do so few of the assembled mourners seem pleased to see her? And why is Ronit so surprised when she learns that Dovid (Nivola) has married the sad-looking Esti (Rachel McAdams)?
Despite the unremarkable suburban setting (for a foreign film-maker, Lelio delivers a really impressive sense of north London) this is clearly a place of secrets. But what are they?
Slowly – and it will be too slowly for some – things become clearer, with some revelations being a little less dramatic than we were expecting but others definitely more so.
The moment when Esti – hith- erto an unassuming figure hiding behind the modest clothes and wigs of the Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised – reveals her true intention is a moment of genuine excitement and drama.
Later, Lelio will do an equally impressive job of maintaining tension levels as emotions boil over and life-changing decisions have to be made.
Of the two female leads, Weisz has the higher profile these days and she’s very good indeed, with her Best Actress nomination one of five that the film garnered at tonight’s
‘The moment when Esti reveals her true intention is a moment of genuine excitement’
British Independent Film Awards. But even better is McAdams, who made her name with big films such as The Notebook and Sherlock
Holmes but, like Weisz, is happy to accept the creative challenge offered by smaller films like this. She executes it with a quiet subtlety and flawless English accent that are hugely impressive.
That said, the film has been around for a long time. Like Glenn Close’s Oscar contender, The Wife, it was first shown at the Toronto Film Festival of 2017 and it may be that 2018 awards juries, rightly or wrongly, may take exception to the apparent strategy of holding a film back to boost its chances of winning.
But I really enjoyed it. Lelio paints London in convincing tones of cold and grey, the acting right across the board is strong and Weisz is to be congratulated, not just on her central performance, but on backing a film that provides a seemingly convincing glimpse of what goes on within a very reserved religious grouping. I’m looking forward to The
Favourite already.