Themes: Faltering Friendships, Death of a Friend, Midlife Crises
Main Cast: Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, JoBeth Williams, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly
Release Year: 1983
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Embraced by the Baby Boomer generation and spawning countless imitators, the sophomore film of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan was a successful comedy-drama with a best selling soundtrack of Motown hits. Kevin Kline and Glenn Close star as Harold and Sarah Cooper, a couple whose marital troubles are put on hold while they host an unhappy reunion of former college pals gathered for the funeral of one of their own, a suicide victim named Alex. As the weekend unfolds, the friends catch up with each other, play the music of their youth, reminisce, smoke marijuana, and pair off with each other in unexpected combinations. Included are Michael (Jeff Goldblum), a smarmy journalist; Sam (Tom Berenger), a TV star; Karen (JoBeth Williams), unhappily married and pining for Sam; Nick (William Hurt), a drug-addicted Vietnam vet; and Meg (Mary Kay Place), a single career woman who wants a child. Joining the group is Alex's bizarre girlfriend Chloe (Meg Tilly), who finds new love with Nick. As they learn to deal with the truth about the loss of idealism in their lives and Alex's sad demise, the friends find their bond still intact, while the marriage of Harold and Sarah is healed in an unusual way that's in sync with the era of their youth. Cut from the release of The Big Chill (1983) was the brief appearance of young actor Kevin Costner as Alex. Kasdan promised Costner a role in his next picture, which turned out to be a star-making part in Silverado (1985). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Review
A seminal baby boomer angst session, The Big Chill proved enormously popular with audiences who saw their own thirty-something anxieties brought to life with the aid of an impossibly catchy soundtrack. The film eulogized the lost ideals and enthusiasms of the 1960s and pondered what, if anything, had taken their place. The film begins with the funeral of Alex, long considered the best and brightest of the group of friends, whose death and burial symbolize the collective death of a relentlessly mythologized, sentimentalized era. The survivors are left to scratch their heads, smoke some pot, and dance around the kitchen in an effort to figure out what happened, and why. It is a testament to Lawrence Kasdan's strengths as a writer and director that, while the film does dip its toe repeatedly in the collective pool of nostalgia, it tends more towards melancholy reflection than sentimental excess. The friends question what happened to the promise of their youth, but they do so with an eye towards explaining their present state, rather than trying to recreate their past glories. It is little surprise that this sort of reflective meditation hit such a chord with its audience, many of whom were easing into the same sort of complacent, suburban lifestyle that they may have once claimed to abhor. Composed of equal parts mourning and acceptance, The Big Chill became an anthem for a generation trying to accept the fact that their present was not the future they had hoped it would be. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Don Galloway - Richard; James Gillis - Minister; Ken Place - Peter The Cop; Kevin Costner - Alex (uncredited); Patricia Gaul - Annie; Jacob Kasdan - Autograph Seeker; Jon Kasdan - Harold and Sarah's Son; Muriel Moore - Alex's Mother; Meg Kasdan - Airline Hostess; Craig Dunaway - Tight End
Credit
Barrie M. Osborne - Associate Producer, Wallis Nicita - Casting, April Ferry - Costume Designer, Michael Grillo - First Assistant Director, Lawrence Kasdan - Director, Carol Littleton - Editor, Lawrence Kasdan - Executive Producer, Marcia Nasatir - Executive Producer, Meg Kasdan - Composer (Music Score), Michael Germain - Makeup, Mickey Scott - Makeup, Lou Barlia - Camera Operator, Ida Random - Production Designer, John Bailey - Cinematographer, Ida Random - Producer, Michael Shamberg - Producer, George P. Gaines - Set Designer, Gene S. Cantamessa - Sound/Sound Designer, Barbara Benedek - Screenwriter, Lawrence Kasdan - Screenwriter, Al Laverde - Key Grip, The Rolling Stones - Featured Music, Three Dog Night - Featured Music, Marvin Gaye - Featured Music, Smokey Robinson - Featured Music
After the funeral, the rest of their college friends spend the weekend with Harold and Sarah. They turn to each other as a means of trying to figure out not only why Alex committed suicide but also to explore what happened to the ideals of their youth. This includes the now-divorced Sam (Tom Berenger) who has gone from leading protests to becoming a Hollywood star bearing a close resemblance to Tom Selleck (he also starred in a television series similar to Selleck's hit series, Magnum, P.I.) Sam continues to harbor romantic feelings for Karen (Jo Beth Williams) who is now living an affluent lifestyle with her conservative husband Richard. Nick (William Hurt) is an injured Vietnam War veteran who suffers from impotence. He was a radio psychologist in San Francisco who questions the ethical nature of what he does and now supports himself as a small time drug dealer. He eventually becomes involved with Chloe whose aimlessness finds greater purpose through this relationship. Michael (Jeff Goldblum), once a radical journalist, now works for People Magazine and is perpetually unfaithful to his (offscreen) girlfriend, the only person who still subscribes to the ideals of her youth. Meg (Mary Kay Place) is a successful but unmarried lawyer who is desperate to have a child. She decides to ask one of the men in the group to have a child with her and spends the weekend trying to determine whom she should ask. It is also revealed that Sarah had had an affair with Alex during her marriage to Harold. While they do not fully resolve the issue of Alex's suicide, the bonds of their youth serve as a method of healing for the current issues in their lives.
Richard Corliss of TIME described the Big Chill as a "funny and ferociously smart movie," stating:
These Americans are in their 30s today, but back then they were the Now Generation. Right Now: give me peace, give me justice, gimme good lovin'. For them, in the voluptuous bloom of youth, the '60s was a banner you could carry aloft or wrap yourself inside. A verdant anarchy of politics, sex, drugs and style carpeted the landscape. And each impulse was scored to the rollick of the new music: folk, rock, pop, R & B. The armies of the night marched to Washington, but they boogied to Liverpool and Motown. Now, in 1983, Harold & Sarah & Sam & Karen & Michael & Meg & Nick—classmates all from the University of Michigan at the end of our last interesting decade—have come to the funeral of a friend who has slashed his wrists. Alex was a charismatic prodigy of science and friendship and progressive hell raising who opted out of academe to try social work, then manual labor, then suicide. He is presented as a victim of terminal decompression from the orbital flight of his college years: a worst-case scenario his friends must ponder, probing themselves for symptoms of the disease.[2]
Vincent Canby of the New York Times argued that the film is a "very accomplished, serious comedy" and an "unusually good choice to open this year's festival in that it represents the best of mainstream American film making."[3]Roger Ebert stated, "The Big Chill is a splendid technical exercise. It has all the right moves. It knows all the right words. Its characters have all the right clothes, expressions, fears, lusts and ambitions. But there's no payoff and it doesn't lead anywhere. I thought at first that was a weakness of the movie. There also is the possibility that it's the movie's message."[4]
The DVD of the film received a 69% rating from Rotten Tomatoes (22 fresh and 10 rotten reviews).[5]
