Mark Reviews Movies: DISOBEDIENCE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 3, 2018

The potential for an examination of faith, what it means to be genuinely free, conflicted grief, and much else is present in Disobedience. Co-writer/director Sebastián Lelio's movie touches upon these ideas, but their presence is always confined to the context of its story, a melodrama about the conflict between forbidden love and traditional values.

For what it is, this story, based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, is occasionally but thoroughly involving on own merits. Much of that involvement comes from two of its performances, although, strangely, those two performances aren't from the actors playing the potentially star-crossed lovers.

The lovers are played by Rachel Weisz, as the daughter of a recently deceased rabbi of the Orthodox persuasion, and Rachel McAdams, as a teacher who is married but is also hiding the truth of her sexuality. Ronit, Weisz's character, left the Orthodox community in London decades ago, in response to her father's discovery that she's a lesbian and out of fear of being trapped in a loveless marriage as a way to "cure" her. Esti, McAdams' character, stayed, marrying Ronit's cousin Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) at the strong suggestion of Ronit's father. The rabbi did believe that marriage would be a "cure," and if Esti is going to have sex with a man, he argued, that man might as well be a friend.

The movie opens with the rabbi (played by Anton Lesser) delivering a sermon about humanity's uniqueness among all of creation. Humans exist somewhere between the angels and the beasts, capable of knowing divine goodness but still acting on instinctual drives. The freedom to choose between these two is humanity's blessing and curse essentially, and before he can finish up his thoughts, he falls over, dying shortly after.

Ronit has been living in New York City in the decades since leaving London, making a career for herself as a photographer. She gets a call informing her of the rabbi's death, and after some impulsive mourning through drinking and sex with a random man, she flies out to London. There, she's met with judgmental and suspicious stares from the members of the community she abandoned (The most she receives is the blanket statement of condolence, "May you live a long life"). Only Dovid offers her as much warmth as he's allowed by tradition, and he invites Ronit to stay with him and Esti in their home for as long as she needs.

The most uncomfortable moments, of course, arrive when Ronit is confronted with Esti's presence. The screenplay by Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz is hesitant to divulge the past between these two characters, but the constant stares, the awkward silences, the way Esti stands up for Ronit against the not-so-subtle condemnations of other members of the community (When is Ronit going to get married, and doesn't she know that children are a vital part of life) pretty much ensure that we know something is going on here.

Their romance rekindles, as they visit the old familiar places, and they try to keep their affectionate displays from the view of the community. A sex scene between the two in a hotel room is a fine display of how such a scene can be pulled off without making it seem exploitative, with Lelio focusing on the characters' faces and the sensual, not explicit, elements of sex.

The eventual path of the story should be obvious, because Lelio and Lenkiewicz are primarily detailing the problem of being free within a repressive culture. The only question is whether the tale will end in tragedy or happiness. In between the moments of the affair, though, there are moments that deal with the specific conflicts within at least two of these characters.

Esti's conflict, between being a woman of sincere faith and her equally genuine feelings for Ronit, is the most intriguing, and McAdams' performance is one of deeply felt emotional split. She wants both of her defining characters—a life of religious dedication and her love for Ronit—to be able to exist simultaneously and cannot bring herself to decide between the two. Unexpectedly, the movie shows some compassion for Dovid, who shows himself to be more open-minded than his peers in his treatment of and genuine sympathy for Ronit. Nivola easily could play the role as a villain of sorts, but he's too loyal to his beliefs, his community, and his family to be pigeonholed so simply.

This leaves Ronit with little to do and without much characterization, beyond her open rebellion against the community that she left so long ago. The movie seems uncertain of what her purpose in this story is, since most of the drama belongs to Esti and Dovid, both of whom have actual arcs to their characters. Weisz is fine enough in the role, but one can't help but wonder how this story would play out from Esti's perspective instead.

With a fairly passive and static lead character, Disobedience ultimately loses too much of its melodramatic potential. As for the movie's ideas, they're entirely in the service of its final lesson, which ignores the religious and cultural aspects of its central conflict in favor of a generic message about freedom for its own sake. The final circumstances are bit more complicated than that, but in the end, they, like so much of what the story revolves around, are just that: circumstances.

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