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“Disobedience,” Sebastián Lelio’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film “A Fantastic Woman” from 2017, and his first English-language film, begins with a Rabbi preaching about free will in the context of the Holocaust. He speaks of angels, beasts, and Adam and Eve, among other things. He asserts, with aplomb, that humans have the “freedom to choose.” Then he succumbs to his injuries. There’s something uplifting about a story that isn’t concerned with “subtlety,” as it were. Put everything on the table. Bring the theme to the foreground. Continue to underline as you go. “Disobedience,” based on Naomi Alderman’s novel (and adapted by Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz), is a good old-fashioned melodrama, albeit with a quieter touch, than most other films in the genre.
The rabbi who died was Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser), a well-known figure in the Orthodox Jewish community of London who had recently passed away. His daughter Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a photographer based in New York, had left the family years before. When she returns home, she walks into a world that has remained unchanged since her childhood, and she is met with a mixture of curiosity and concern by relatives and former friends. Short leather skirts and long free hair define her as a rebellious secular with cigarettes in her hair and cigarettes in her mouth. According to her father’s obituary, he was “unfortunately” the father of no children. It stings a little. She’s been gone for so long that she’s completely unaware that Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), who was taken in by her father as a protégé when he was 13, and Esti, a childhood friend (Rachel McAdams), have tied the knot in their hometown of Rome. When she realizes what she’s done, there’s an awkward pause in the kitchen to process it. The look of surprise on Weisz’s face is priceless, even though we don’t know what happened before.
Due to the fact that Lelio does not introduce the characters and their relationships in a straightforward manner, the eloquence of the performances is essential to the success of the material. It takes some time before you figure out who Dovid is in relation to Ronit, despite the fact that their behavior suggests they were once close friends. In the process, she forgets about herself and almost hugs him in a friendly greeting, only to burst out laughing when he recoils at her touch. Ronit is invited to stay with Dovid and Esti while she is in London for a few days. This is a dangerous game to play because it quickly becomes apparent that Esti and Ronit had an adolescent romance that was well-known in the community at the time. Lelio’s approach gives us the impression that we’ve been thrust into the middle of a very tight-knit community with a long-standing history of mutual support. The act of exposition is always awkward, so Lelio chooses not to bother with it. In this crowd, the word “exposition” would never be uttered aloud because everyone knows everything about everyone else. Dovid and Etsi do not have any children at this time. She works as a teacher at a girls’ boarding school and enjoys her job. He is poised to fill the enormous shoes left by Rav Krushka. As a result of Ronit’s arrival, everything becomes a mess.
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“Gloria” is Lelio’s third film about women in a row (the first was “Gloria” in 2013), and he is deeply sympathetic to the ways in which repressive societies force women into all kinds of impossible double- and triple-binds. When a trans woman fought for the right to grieve for her deceased lover in “A Fantastic Woman,” Lelio’s focus on the cruelty of the surrounding society pushed the film into a nightmare-like state. In “Disobedience,” he takes a step back from this. There are no villains in this story. It’s worth noting that even the strict culture of Orthodox Judaism isn’t necessarily a villain. The culture is shown to be a close one, with many social benefits, benefits that Ronit has missed out on as a result of her departure. The best scene, despite the fact that there is a lot of dramatic and sexual material in the film, may very well be a group scene early on, when Ronit attends Dovid and Esti’s Shabbat, which is also attended by a small group of Ronit’s relatives. The “mood” at the table is far from friendly or warm, but it is also not toxic in any way, shape, or form. This is a group of people. Despite the fact that Ronit is a misplaced lamb, there is still room for her in the flock. A lively debate ensues, and when Esti interrupts the proceedings unexpectedly with a scathing observation, Ronit beams with delight from across the table at her. These all appear to be real people, rather than caricatures. This reminded me a little of Peter Weir’s novel “Witness,” in which you could see why Rachel didn’t just run away with the cops and abandon her Amish community entirely. You could see why she wanted to stay, and you could understand why she had to stay.
Disobedience Quiz
The relationship between Ronit and Esti, both in the past and in the present, is unquestionably the film’s central theme, but Lelio takes his time getting to it. McAdams is miscast, but she does an excellent job portraying Esti’s developing emotional life, which explodes out of her in a flurry: it is as if time had stopped for her when Ronit fled the community so many years ago. McAdams, on the other hand, is inherently optimistic. She’d be a perky ingenue in a 1950s film, to be sure. She is particularly effective in this scene, when she shows mischievous delight by sneaking a puff off Ronit’s cigarette. However, when she is required to portray Esti’s anguish at being forced to marry in order to cure her of her desire to sleep with women, she is unable to reach the depths necessary. Even though she understands what the depths are, she is unable to reach them in the same way that a Lili Taylor, Elizabeth Moss, or Natalie Portman could. The scenes between Weisz and McAdams, on the other hand, are fascinating, with each actress paying close attention to the other and noticing even the smallest details. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of Grand Tragic Romance, but that’s not the point. These were two young ladies whose typical adolescent crush had been forbidden. In a way, time seemed to have stopped for both of them.
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The colors of the film are subdued and chilly, consisting entirely of blacks, greys, and smoky blues, to the point where it appears to be a black-and-white photograph at times. It’s lovely, in a classical and formal way, and I like it. Although the film “A Fantastic Woman” contained many surreal dreamlike images, Lelio keeps things simple in this one. However, because it is so direct, it can be detrimental at times. There are scenes in the movie where teachers are shown giving lectures that directly comment on the action that is taking place in the movie. Dovid and his young rabbinical students discuss the importance of sensuous love, and Esti and her students discuss Shakespeare’s “Othello” in their classes. Ronit spins the radio dial to the station of The Cure’s “Love Song,” which just so happens to be the perfect song to describe the emotions of the moment in “A Fantastic Woman,” and in “Disobedience,” Ronit spins the dial to the station of Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman,” which just so happens to describe the emotions of the moment in “A Fantastic Woman.” These blatantly obvious selections stand out in particular.
About the quiz
Pauline Kael observed that melodrama is “the principal vehicle for political thought in our films,” which can be seen repeatedly in films made before the 1950s, particularly in the films of the silent era. The over-the-top and preachy nature of melodrama can come across in literature. However, cinema has the ability to make melodrama appear not only real, but also urgent and relevant. If anything, “Disobedience” had the potential to go even further in the direction of “Stella Dallas”-style melodrama torment. Certain aspects of it come across as oddly low-stakes, especially in light of the circumstances. However, in a way, that is also refreshing.Also, you must try to play this Disobedience quiz.
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