– By Cate Marquis –
In DISOBEDIENCE, Rachel Weisz stars as a woman who returns to her Orthodox Jewish community in London for the funeral of her father, a revered rabbi. Years earlier, Ronit (Weisz) had left the community she had grown up in, forced out over a sexual attraction to another girl, Esti (Rachel McAdams), while the other girl chose to remain and submitting to obeying the rules of the community. The consequences of those different choices, for their and others lives in the community, and the very concept of free will are the themes of director Sebastian Lelio’s thoughtful, nuanced English-language drama DISOBEDIENCE.
DISOBEDIENCE offers the gifted Rachel Weisz a role worthy of her talents and Weisz gives an outstanding performance as Ronit. This excellent English-language drama is directed by Sebastian Lelio, the Chilean director of the Oscar-winning A FANTASTIC WOMAN. Lelio co-wrote this script with Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on a novel by Naomi Alderman. In A FANTASTIC WOMAN, the director addressed the challenges faced by a transgender woman. Lelio brings the same thought-provoking and deeply human approach to another subject, this time addressing the attitudes towards homosexuality in Orthodox Jewish communities.
The film opens in a synagogue in London’s Hendon neighborhood, as Rabbi Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser) is giving a sermon. The elderly rabbi notes that God created creatures without free will, the angels and beasts, before he created mankind. Did the creation of people, beings with free-will, last mean they were an afterthought?, he asks. Just after the rabbi poses this question but before he can answer it, he is struck down by a stroke. His question about man’s free-will remains a lingering thought throughout the film.
Ronit (Weisz) has built a life and career as a successful art photographer in New York but returns to the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where she grew up upon learning of her father’s death. When she arrives, it is clear that no one in the community expected Ronit to return for her father’s funeral. Still, after the initial shock of seeing her, Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola), her father’s protegé and Ronit’s childhood friend, invites her into his house, where the mourners are gathered, and offers her a place to stay. The other community members, however, are not very welcoming and seem both puzzled and uncomfortable that she is there.
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