Disobedience Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Disobedience Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 5, 2018

Disobedience, the new film from Director Sebastián Lelio (A Fantastic Woman), explores high concepts in the affairs of love, commitment, and faith. The film often lacks nuance beyond the slow-build of its narrative crux and establishing inter-character relationships. It can be a blunt instrument that crudely, but effectively, opens human emotion, explores the clash between wants and roles, and takes a long, hard look at self-examination in the light of fulfillment and, contrarily, the absence thereof. But it can also be a subtle exploration of acceptance and reality, of how things are versus how they might should be. The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Naomi Alderman, first published in 2006.

A highly respected Jewish Rav dies suddenly and unexpectedly. His estranged daughter, Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz), who his obituary excludes, returns to London from New York where she has made a life for herself as a photographer half a world away from the controversies and people that pushed her out. When she returns, she is reunited with her father's prodigy, a young man named Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), who has married Ronit's one-time friend and lover, Esti (Rachel McAdams). Ronit's return rekindles her love affair with Esti, who was forced to marry Dovit though she feels no real attraction to him, or to men, for that matter. As Dovit prepares to step into his mentor's shoes, his wife strays from his side as she explores the passions that tore Ronit from her so many years ago and brought her to her husband.

The story does not demand the viewer accept an established viewpoint of right or wrong. Each character struggles with their place in the world to some degree. Those struggles extend to what they have, what they want, and what they need and how everything conforms, or doesn't conform, to an established status quo that is simply there because it exists, not because it has been built up only to be torn down in a fit of cultural, political, or religious defiance. The filmmakers have carefully assembled the story in a way that's complimentary to every perspective: the returning outsider who has long eschewed the ways of the people around whom she now finds herself, the strictly religious husband who expects and demands things -- including his wife -- to be a certain way, and the wife whose already frail psyche is further strained when her true love returns to tear away the thin veil of acceptance that has kept her in check and kept her from being herself. The characters are carefully considered and finely interwoven into the story's finely fashioned fabric. It lacks a sense of absolute organic construction, but the manner in which it is built -- allowing the viewer to observe rather than be yanked in a particularly direction -- is refreshingly honest and open.

The film's deliberate pacing occasionally sees the end product suffer, but it's also at its best when its characters are slowly opened to their new realities, increasingly vulnerable, and forced into various personal and interpersonal crises that emerge simply because of who they are and what they believe, deeply and truly from within their most essential essences. The story is not one of rapidity, of cut-and-dry narratives, or of obvious directions to a "happy ending." For these characters, right and wrong, happiness and regret are not mutually exclusive. There are no easy answers. None of the characters will come through the experience, regardless of how they respond, without fresh wounds and vulnerabilities. Sebastián Lelio reinforces these ideas with a bleak tone that sees the movie drained of color, to an extreme in some cases, creating not just a drab atmosphere but a complimentary dour tone that reflects the characters' place in the film and with one another. The visual cues are harsh and, like so much of the rest of the movie, never wanting for any more clear pronouncement of idea and theme. The visual tone is a reinforcement, not a necessary one but certainly a further confirmation of the film's purpose and the characters' directions.

Performances are excellent. Weisz devours the material, playing the part with a deeply rooted resentment for where she's been and where she has returned to be, where she is uncomfortable but finds a rekindled spark in the arms of a former lover. The alienation that drove her away returns with her to London. Her rebelliousness extends beyond her sexual preference. It's reflected in her habits, her hair, her attire, and Weisz understands how each of these outward components reflect her as a person and reflect her as an individual in a world where conformity and adherence to structure is the status quo and she, in her parts and in her total, is not. She plays well against McAdams, who can't find the same character depth even as hers is the most vulnerable and confused, torn between her desires and her realities and what seems to be a no-win escape into, or out from, either end. Alessandro Nivola is superb as the young religious scholar whose life slowly unravels as his wife's truths come to the surface. His ability to capture not only essential character traits but to live his code is a foundational rock against which the story plays and develops; without his work the film would be of much lesser quality and resonance.

Disobedience Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As alluded to in the body of the film review above, Disobedience was photographed with a deliberately drab, drained palette and an absence of tack sharpness to emphasize the film's mood and character explorations. Cinematographer Danny Cohen, who shot several gorgeous pictures of recent vintage such as Victoria & Abdul and The Danish Girl, maintains that mood throughout, deemphasizing any distracting element while ensuring every character and environment plays to the necessary dramatic building blocks that the visuals reinforce. Universal's Blu-ray reproduces the film's visual structure very nicely, seemingly making sure not to tinker with essentials and leaving well enough alone. Colors are appropriately drab and moody, lacking more than cursory saturation and certainly no boosts to contrast. Skin tones are resultantly a little pale, too, but black levels do hold up nicely enough. Texturally, the movie is not particularly stout, either, but essential skin details, clothing lines, and environmental definition satisfies, each finding sufficient complexity as necessary. A bit of noise does settle into some scenes, including more evenly and well it scenes such as one seen at the 79-minute mark, but other intrusive maladies are largely nonexistent. This is a solid transfer of a visually challenging and bleak movie.

Disobedience Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Disobedience features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The film begins with several large bursts of intense music, offering expansive width and some depth alike. Music is not a prominent component throughout the film -- little beyond dialogue really stands out -- but essential clarity and spacing are always just fine. Minor ambience in various quiet exterior scenes adds a small, but critical, flair for realism to any given moment in which such sounds are necessary components. Good directional movement and sound depth accompany a train whipping past in chapter 12, a relatively and comparatively, within the much larger Blu-ray audio landscape, small moment but here one of the premiere sound elements in the film. Dialogue propels the bulk of the listening experience, and the spoken word is delivered with everything in perfect working order.

Disobedience Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Disobedience contains no supplemental content. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase, and for those concerned with packaging, this release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

Disobedience Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Disobedience is at once both blunt and discrete, a fascinating juxtaposition in which strict orthodoxy plays against secret, and eventually not-so-secret, rebellion. It's not so much a question of which will win out but how the characters will ultimately respond to the new, and returning, stimuli in their lives. It's an imperfect film but one that promises greater appreciation with repeat viewings and an exploration of all it has to offer beyond the surface, which may be substantial. Universal's featureless Blu-ray delivers satisfying video and audio. Recommended.