By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Sebastián Lelio
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola, Bernardo Santos, Anton Lesser, Bernice Stegers, Allan Corduner, Nicholas Woodeson, Liza Sadovy, Clara Francis, Mark Stobbart, Caroline Gruber and Alexis Zegerman.
Rating: Excellent.
Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, who brought last year´s “ A Fantastic Woman”, which recently won The Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture brings “Disobedience” and again Lelio is at the top of his game.
Based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, “Disobedience” centers Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) a photographer who returns to London to mourn her deceased father.
She will reunite with Esti Kuperman (Rachel McAdams), who is now married to husband Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola).
Now that Ronit is back in Esti´s life, the two of them will soon reignite their passion that will lead them to a forbidden love , where faith will be tested at all costs.
“Disobedience” is a drama that works due to the environment of the film itself and of course the story that was really solid.
Both Sebastián Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz wrote a remarkable screenplay with solid and rich characters. Another thing that made “Disobedience” very interesting is that it takes you to the world of the Jewish Community, which is rarely seen on film.
When Jews are involved, we only see themes about the holocaust and the suffering but here is different and at the same time we see two women who love each other despite of each others beliefs.
I liked how Lelio triggered the conflict of his characters and I consider this film very original since it takes place in an orthodox community like the jewish.
Besides writing the film, I love how he directed his film and captured the traditions and customs of the community. Also he directed brilliantly his cast that led to outstanding performances of his cast, specially by Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams and Alessandro Nivola.
The chemistry between Weisz and McAdams works at all levels and both deliver fantastic performances in this film.
The score by Matthew Herbert in the film is wonderful and with his music knew how to engage the viewer.
The third act of “Disobedience” has one of the most wonderful twists I have seen in a while and is one of the things that I really enjoyed of this film.
For people who do belong to the Jewish Community can be a touchy film and regardless of your belief please be very open to see “Disobedience”.
I have to say that this film took me completely by surprise. I loved “ A Fantastic Woman” and I saw in Sebastián Lelio a filmmaker who knows how to tell a story and he proved it here.
Hopefully we can see this film in contention for next year´s awards season and is by far one of the most impressive dramas I´ve seen in a while.
“Disobedience” is one of the year´s best film, I highly recommend it for Lelio´s writing/directing and the performances by the cast.