Skip to main content

Review: The Big Chill (1983)

The Big Chill (1983)

I have just arrived back home for a holiday weekend after quite a long time away and one of my first thoughts upon landing down was thinking back on my recent watch of The Big Chill. Driving through old neighbourhoods, I know that I'll soon be seeing friends, some of whom I haven't seen for a year or more, and I know that as soon as I see them it'll be like no time has passed at all. It's a feeling that's both cheesy and bittersweet, tied deeply into nostalgia and sentimentality. And thinking back on Lawrence Kasdan's film, I realize that he made a close-to-perfect encapsulation of this sentimentality - of old friends reuniting, catching up, and, in some cases, picking up where things were left off many years before.
The plot of The Big Chill is very simple. A group of very close old friends reunite for the funeral of one of their friend's who has recently taken his own life. After the funeral all of the friends decide to stay on for a few more nights at the large bed and breakfast that the couple within the group runs. It is during these few days that the movie takes place, as the friends re-discover each other and help each come to terms with where life has taken them to.

Kasdan's direction is deft; he knows where to focus the camera in the intimate moments between the friends. Speaking of which, the cast and performances are absolutely stellar and many now-famous (though younger) faces will be recognized, including Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Glenn Close, Tom Bergeron and Jeff Goldblum. The other amazing part of the film is the soundtrack, which many notably list as one of the best film soundtracks of all-time. The film is quite bittersweet and thoroughly nostalgic and is a nice choice for an evening when you just want to chill out with old friends. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: How to With John Wilson (Season 1)

How to With John Wilson (Season 1) TLDR: It's hard to describe exactly what How To is or why exactly it works, but there's a certain point in every episode when the comedy begins to click and then the human element - the surprising poignancy and the everyman/woman relatability - comes out in spades. This documentary series is unlike anything else out there and absolutely worth your time. Who exactly is John Wilson? That's the first question that comes to mind when HBO's new documentary series is recommended to a new viewer. The name is in the show's title, and yet John Wilson is rather a nobody in the grand scheme of things as well as in the entertainment industry (at least he was prior to the becoming a bonafide hit). However, not long ago, contemporary comedy icon Nathan Fielder discovered Wilson and, after seeing his work and style, decided to jump on board as a producer for a new series made by Wilson.  So, again, what exactly is this show? Well, each episode of...

Review: Soul (2020)

Soul (2020) TLDR: For a year where many may feel like they have lost a little piece of their own, Soul has arrived to remind us all what's most important in life. This is a Pixar film that is arguably more important for adults to watch than kids: it is beautiful - in both story and art, it is quirky, it is heartfelt and, as these trying times endlessly push on, it reminds us that there is still a lot of good in this world to enjoy and reflect upon.  Note: some spoilers below. It takes a little bit of time to ease into Disney/Pixar's Soul. Though the film starts out in a lush and beautifully rendered NYC filled with delightful jazz music as we follow Joe around his everyday boroughs, things very quickly run astray. Suddenly, we are thrown into an abstract world filled with Picasso-like wiry characters and massively heady existential concepts like 'where do we come from', 'the great beyond', and much more. If it's not immediately apparent, it soon becomes clea...

Review: The New Mutants (2020)

The New Mutants (2020) TLDR: A sad, dismal final chapter in Fox's once-acclaimed X-Men saga. The New Mutants shows promise in fragments, but its poor script and plot and often awkward execution makes for a sickly overall package that is quite fitting for this equally-sickly year that it has finally been released in... The New Mutants were an alt-X-Men team created in the early 80's in an effort to revamp and re-contemporize a new team of teenage X-Men. The new series became a smash-hit with new star mutants like Magik, Cannonball, Sunspot, Wolfsbane and Mirage, all of whom continue to headline Marvel comics to this day. Josh Boone's The New Mutants, which was announced more than five years ago and shot in 2017, has finally seen the light of day in 2020... The film seeks to adapt the team's beloved 'Demon Bear' storyline, while introducing audiences to this fresh team of mutant superheroes. In doing so, Boone tries to create an omelet-homage from the likes of Ste...