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Rating:
Usually, the opposite happens to me. The more times I see—or rather choose to see—the same movie, the more I become captivated by it, discover its many nuances, and grasp its meaning more clearly. When I first saw "The Big Chill," I hailed it as a masterpiece: the actors were exceptionally in tune and exuberant, the screenplay well-written, the direction experienced and attentive to weighing each character so that the ensemble cast appears balanced, and then there’s the soundtrack, which is perhaps one of the most beautiful among non-original scores in history.
Upon watching it again later, whether because years pass and you have the chance to see or read more, or because what happens around you makes you change your mind, I found it less and less plausible and sincere, until I considered it a film strategically designed to evoke this or that emotion in the viewer, pandering particularly to the generation it represents. For now, in my opinion, it can’t sink any lower.
The story originates from a suicide. At the funeral, a group of old friends, '68ers, almost all of whom have succeeded in directions contrary to those they fought so hard for, reunite: one became an entrepreneur, another a successful lawyer, one a doctor, another entered the trade of their television image, one started a family by marrying the most bourgeois type imaginable, etc., etc. The ideals of the past survive only in a journalist who writes pieces "that the average American can read during an average dump" and in a cocaine-addicted radio host who still tosses around the word "cops" or plays with the camera. These last two are caricatures just as much as the first ones. Together, they decide to stay for the weekend at Kevin Kline’s house, the entrepreneur, who will soon sell his chain of sporting goods stores to a multinational. While classics from their youth play on the record player, they recount to each other their failures, their remaining hopes, play rugby, act like college kids, thus exorcising the thought of their companion’s suicide. All this is illuminated by autumnal light, with carpets of leaves and a warm sun.
The worst (American) idea of how to make a movie, applied to a respectable cast that suffers because they are all puppets, and the puppeteer, though talented, can't hide the strings. Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, William Hurt, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum—a lineup of important names that few films can boast, but nevertheless. Perhaps it was to be expected from someone (Kasdan) who wrote two episodes of Star Wars with Lucas and created the character of Indiana Jones, and later directed that hodgepodge "French Kiss."
It’s a flatline of a film, full of nostalgia, very pop, pseudo-Altman but without the natural ease, directed by a filmmaker who would have needed a restorative diet of John Ford, Raoul Walsh, and Howard Hawks lessons coupled with a neorealistic approach.
A sincere message "The Big Chill" manages to convey, perhaps beyond Kasdan's intentions: the idea of ’68 as a sterile, intellectual, and fashionable revolution. While the greatest risk is that the film might corrupt the absolute beauty of the soundtrack.
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