Disobedience

Disobedience follows Ronit. She returns to her Orthodox Jewish community for the first time in years following the death of her father. Her father’s position as the beloved Rav means that despite the general community’s dislike and distrust of Ronit, she is present in the funeral preparations and in the community at large. During this time, Ronit stays at her old friend Dovid’s house. Dovid has married Esti, an old friend and lover of Ronit. Esti herself is struggling with the oppressive nature of her community and her ongoing feelings for Ronit. An affair begins again between Ronit and Esti which leads to a great deal of both generalized angst and angst of a specifically religious flavour.

At least in the first half of the movie, the emphasis in Disobedience isn’t on the queer relationship. It’s more that they use the same-sex relationship as part of its larger theme of oppression within this religious community. I’m not particularly qualified to talk about religious oppression. But from an outsider’s perspective at least, it was done very well. This story is steeped in the traditions and conventions of the Orthodox community where it is set. If nothing else, that’s a pretty novel setting for a movie. Disobedience’s primary focus seems to be exploring this community as a whole and I do think it is successful at that. It is definitely a critical view of Orthodox Jews which I’m sure many in that community would take issue with. But I don’t think Disobedience’s audience is going to be content, Orthodox Jews anyway.

Had Disobedience had a less talented director, I think it would be a lot less successful. As a screenplay, it’s pretty dense and dialogue-heavy. It would have been exceptionally easy for this film to become boring and too oblique. However, Sebastian Lelio wrings the emotion out of every scene which helps keep me invested. He’s exceptionally good at setting a mood which is really necessary for this type of script. Lelio manages to add a largely unspoken tension to many of his scenes. His ability to visually portray the inner turmoil of his characters through little moments and even just bodily positioning is exceptional.

Rachel Weisz full-on eviscerates her role as Ronit. Lelio puts a lot of the onus on her performance and she easily rises to the occasion. Without dialogue telling us so, we can constantly see her discomfort and status as an outsider in this community. When she is given dialogue, Weisz adds layers of emotional complexity to it that sometimes tells us more about her and the story than the dialogue itself. The rest of the cast is good too but it is Weisz who anchors the film with her performance.

I haven’t talked much about the actual queer elements of this film so let’s talk about the sex scene. Mostly, it’s totally fine. The beginning of it involving Ronit divesting Esti of her layers of modest clothing was a particularly notable touch that worked for me. Then it cuts ahead to the two women rolling around on a bed, doing general sex stuff. This is still all fine. What I was not here for was the bit where Ronit hovers about Esti and spits into her waiting mouth. Twice. Maybe this is something that’s sexy in real life, but it took me completely out of the moment. All I could think of was a day on set in which Rachel Mcadams lay with her mouth open and a camera focused on her while, Rachel Weisz dropped saliva in her mouth. Because of the nature of movies, I doubt this was a one-take occurrence. That was probably a good several hours of Mcadams ingesting Weisz’s saliva in the name of art. It’s a small moment in the grand scheme of the film but man, all I could think after it happened was how long that probably took to film.

Disobedience is a pretty heavy movie to sit through. It does end hopefully but man, the journey it takes to get there can be pretty rough. It is absolutely a good movie, though. Exceptional directing and Weisz’s performance keep the tension high and the emotions higher. This is absolutely one worth checking out if you like a particularly heavy WLW drama that doesn’t actually end in tragedy.

Overall rating: 8.4/10

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