This is not a story of a women caving in as some said, this is a realistic portait of a women that grew in a harsh community and succeed to confront her homosexuality. The acting of both Rachaels is superb, academy material ! And the male character is really complex and beautiful

One of the most beautiful films I had ever watched . A story about , love , religion , heartbreak , friendship . The cinematography is perfect and the acting is incredible

This project attracted the efforts of an abundance of talents because these are very good roles. Men and women alike. Roles that actors really want.

The complexity of the two leading lady roles must have drawn an abundance of female actresses and the two Rachels are close to perfect.

The Q&A was particularly revealing.

The young and very witty director shone at the Q&A.

This was his first English language film from this Spanish speaking Chilean director and for him to put together a smooth running evenly paced film with such complexity is very illustrative of his talent and abilities.

As to which female role is the supporting role I am not sure. They are both very good roles.

Yes, there was another film that came out during Avengers: Infinity War release week. I was immediately excited for Disobedience as soon as I heard about it. I mean how could you not be? Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams (who I am infatuated with) in a film about a forbidden romance? I was so in. I did see Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman earlier this year, so I was really pleasantly surprised to hear he had another project out so soon. I can draw parallels between the two films and while Disobedience is not perfect and has lapses its well acted and has an interesting look at a religious community being scarred by a "scandalous" affair.

The film is about a woman who returns to a very strict Orthodox Jewish community when her father dies. While there she sees her former lover who is now married. The problem is the fact that people in the Jewish community do not know about the relationship that has occured and also because a lesbian affair is frowned upon in the community. Both women also must deal with harboring the feelings that they have for each other, while attempting to maintain their standing in the Jewish community.

The first thing that's instantly noticeable about the film is its depth into an Orthodox Jewish world. The films backdrop is its strict nature and how a lesbian romance must be hidden from the community. Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams are great in this as expected, and have great chemistry. Their intimate scenes (which are very very intimate) are believable and are a strong point in selling the romance. I always knew McAdams was a talent since she had a good showing on season 2 of True Detective.

The film reminded me of A Fantastic Woman in a way because in that film there is a struggle to accept a transgender person, although the implications in that film are more hostile. I also couldn't help but compare this film to Carol (which is one of the very best films of the decade). Its nowhere near the levels of Carol but does a decent job for what the film is. There are lapses where the film seems slow and it suffers from its best moments being purely when Weisz and McAdams share the screen. Its still a worthy watch, just don't expect anything spectacular.

6/10

Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a single middle-aged photographer, returns to England from New York following the death of her father, an esteemed ultra-Orthodox rabbi who had been the unparalleled Torah and spiritual leader of this non-Hasidic congregation and its institutions (despite, as can be derived from context, having begun his adult life as a Zionist-leaning scion). It immediately becomes evident that due to personal issues she had left the community at a very young age and never looked back. As the story develops, we learn that Esti (Rachel McAdams), now wife of Dovid Kuperman (the departed rabbi's chief disciple and heir apparent, played by Alessandro Nivola) had struggled with similar issues alongside Ronit in their youth but had chosen a drastically different method of coping.

With Ronit's return, old sentiments are dredged up in a manner that upends the lives of all three in a community that simply has not developed tools for dealing with the full spectrum of matters involving private life, nature and choice that have in recent years become so normalized that we hardly lend them so much weight.

As each of the three struggle to cope with their issues, it becomes clear that there is a void in place of a guide in the doctrine of the community and that there is no one right way to cope with outlying struggles.

The directing of the picture and the portrayal of the three main characters is stellar. Having come from this background, I can testify that aside from two seven-candle menorahs, this picture stands out as the most authentic portrayal of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in motion picture history.

This is an extraordinarily exquisite film. From the script to the execution it is a complex, daring, bold, and vulnerable portrait of the inside of the human soul. A must see.

While the movie is very slow paced, the story is a beautiful one! The two actresses are brilliant on their own, and shine together in this film. Worth a watch for any lover of cinema.

There's no doubt that Disobedience attempts to tell an important story about growing up gay in a fundamentalist religious community and the lasting impact such an experience could have on someone. But as much as I'd like to sing its praises for tackling the subject matter, the execution sadly just isn't there.

This is an incredibly self-serious film, which isn't a problem in of itself should it have contained the level of substance and drama to match that tone. Instead, Disobedience repeatedly offers up melodrama and clichés more befitting of a Lifetime movie, right down to a scene where one of the leads frantically chases after the other as she departs in a taxi. There's nothing inherently wrong with melodrama, but the problem is that the film has no self-awareness. These stiff, wooden, cheesy moments are presented as if this were an Oscar-worthy feature without any of the necessary depth or nuance in the screenplay to be on such a level.

Though Weisz and McAdams are talented actors who give the material their best effort, it's for naught as their roles are severely lacking in basic characterization - you can boil them down to "the defiant, rebellious one" and "the timid, repressed one" and you've basically got it covered. And there's barely any thematic exploration beyond the very surface-level notions of repression being negative, acceptance being positive, and the basic clash between fundamentalism and the modern era. The film drags on with very little in the way of plot or intrigue once the premise has been set up, and the overly serious tone becomes more and more suffocating as it plods along. It has a somewhat grating score as well that does not fit the material very well - lush. alternately melancholic and hopeful orchestration that reaches for a grandeur that the movie itself just doesn't justify.

I'm sad to have had such a negative reaction as I really would've loved to see a great film about this subject. Unfortunately, this is really nothing more than a glorified Hallmark movie. At least they tried, I guess.

Strong 1.5/5

"Disobedience" would have had a better title in "Secrets and Lies." It was wasn't that the characters Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) and Esti Kuperman (Rachel McAdams) were disobeying their God in their lesbian relationship. Rather, all the evidence points to their repressed community that resulted in their stultifying and tortured lives.

If there is any character who is central to the lives of Ronit, Esti, and the kindly young rabbi Dovid Kuperman, it is the elderly Rav Shlomo Krushka, who hovers over them all, even after his death. At one critical point in the past, the Rav had caught Ronit and Esti in flagrante dilecto, resulting in Ronit fleeing to New York and Esti trying to "straighten up and flight right" by marrying Dovid.

The film has a symmetry in the final words of Rav speaking to his synagogue about Hashem creating the angels, beasts, and the humans after six days of hard labor that are finally analyzed at the end of the film by Dovid. The gist of the argument is that the angels and beasts are naturally disposed to obedience, while human beings have free will. We never learn the Rav's feelings about what it means to have free will. Rather, it takes two hours of this laboriously paced movie for Dovid to finally understand the "tangled life" of the love triangle in which he lives.

This was a muddied film with good intentions, but poor execution. The symbols were much overused, such as the wig denoting Esti's straight-jacketed existence, the teaching of the "Othello" love triangle of Othello-Desdemona-Iago by Esti to her young students, the smoking of cigarettes to denote rebelliousness, and the euphemism "May you live a long life" as a brush-off line were all overused and heavy-handed.

Above all, there were far too many false endings, including a prospective suicide attempt, a trip to the airport that ends in a turnaround after check-in, and a smarmy embrace of the threesome that denotes forgiveness. The bottom drops out of this film around the midpoint, and it never recovers.

Touching story about a woman (Weisz) who leaves her home to be free but keeps holds on her childhood home and best friends, when she returnes to buried her late father, she realizes they always been in her heart. The movie is touching, heart warming and at times sad. Watch it please!

I really wanted to love this movie. Some parts I enjoyed but was repeatedly taken out of the narrative by filmmaker choices.

The editing left much to be desired-scenes are awkwardly edited where you can see it's a different take of the same scene. Many of the edits simply appeared ham-handed and amateur.

Continuity also seems an issue; the progress of the story is chunked out, like skipping around chapters in a book. The screenplay lacks the dialog which would convey the depth of the story and it's characters.

The actors are quite good but not able to fill all the missing bits of good filmmaking. The score was musically fine but seems to have been written for a different movie. The pacing too, is slow and awkward like much of this film.

The Rachels handled what little they had to work with well. The sex scene was interesting and respectfully shot but again, the editing sucked all the life out of this love story.

Though I think this film was a missed opportunity, the potential for a well-written and directed sequel could fix what didn't work in this outing.

I really wanted to like it but kinda didn't.

I wanted to like this movie. It's rare that A-list actresses sign on to play lovers, and rare to see romance between women on the big screen. But a lot of things didn't quite fit, from the editing, to the storyline, to the music, to the pacing.

The score: whimsical at times, even in dramatic/tense scenes, which felt completely inappropriate. The score seemed like it belonged in a bizarre children's movie, but yet the singing scenes were very dark and sad/somber-sounding. This movie clearly took itself very seriously, so why the carnival music in parts? The cast: good acting overall, no complaints. The story: decent premise. A Rabbi's death brings together old flames in a strictly orthodox Jewish London community, and tensions rise, as well as feelings. But the end...no thanks. Editing/pacing: abrupt at times and feeling disjointed, yet also slow and lingering too long in scenes that dragged. So many directors think that if you are slow and have long, tedious scenes, you will be considered a genius for being artsy and understated. That just isn't how it works. Character development: eh. This movie really would have benefitted from more than just a few words about the past, but scenes depicting more of the history and story between the women. I want to see more depth with these women, but it does end up feeling one-dimensional due to the script and/or editing.

In sum, even today, in 2018, 9 out of 10 movies about women who love each other end with suicide/murder, a woman going back to a man, a woman cheating on her partner with a man (or woman), or some other equally unforgivable outcome, and I say unforgivable because movie producers love to portray gay/bi women as tortured and unable to experience a healthy same-sex relationship. Guess which one this movie falls under, because I won't spoil it...

My advice, skip this and re-watch Carol. I felt like this one wasted my time.

There's a good original story here, but the characters aren't developed enough to warrant caring about. Perhaps if the history between Ronit and Esti had been conveyed more completely, rather than just a couple of sentences referencing what went on between them in the past, there would have been something to hang one's hat on.

It's a pretty plodding process getting to the end, which is disappointing, or at least it would have been if I were invested in these characters or believed that there was some great years-long passion between them. I didn't.

About Disobedience. I finally got to see it. Yes, slow paced, but how incredible acting of the main caracters. Everybody mentions the two Rachels ( I've been a massive fan of Weisz since I saw I Want You (1998) with Nivola - and hats off, but Allesandro Nivola - he was such a revelation. And I am a lesbian. I am also an atheist, and all that orthodox stuff is unbelivable no matter what religion they claim. But in this movie Nivola gave it meening as he invited to a group hug and freed the three of them. I found it beautifull. What happened in their lives after the film ended was surely not written in stone. I am so happy this film was made by international people and not by Hollywood - not that they would have made it. Now - that hyped up love scene - what's so spectacular about that ? It's usual - not like in American movies (Americans really have a problem about sexuality). Well done, as all of the film was. See it.

Fantastic acting from all the cast with some beautiful directing. The passion between both Rachel's are unmissable.

This is truly a must watch!!!!

This new film from Sebastian Lelio tells the moving story of a woman who goes home to her Orthodox Jewish community in London for her father's (a rabbi) funeral. While there, she falls in love with a woman she knew from the past. Lelio builds a stirring portrait of an Orthodox Jewish family that feels both close-knit and intricate at the same time. The culture of such a community is depicted in thoughtful detail without ever overshadowing the story's primary motifs and motivations. The film's script is uniquely written and mixes intense family drama with moments of dry humor or dramatic elements of a somewhat lighter tone. For those concerned that such shifts in the writing could make the film fear uneven, fear not: the narrative always feels satisfying from beginning to end. The film is able to use writing to generate genuine emotional power, although it takes time to build up to such a crescendo in the movie's quietly moving finale.

As far as the acting is concerned, fans of Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams will not be disappointed here. Both actresses are outstanding in their respective roles, although I will say Weisz is slightly better. She is able to show a genuine range of acting technique in her role, and remains captivating for viewers to watch from beginning to end. My only real criticism of this film is that the pacing can be rather spotty at times, and can sometimes be slower than it needs to be given audiences' abilities to absorb plot details. While the film never feels boring or annoying at all (unless, of course, one only wants to watch explosions and CGI when you go to the movies,) audiences sometimes feel a bit ready to move on with the narrative before a specific moment in the film may progress. Otherwise, this is a great and thoughtful drama that addresses thought-provoking issues in the world today (religion, sexuality, and family) while boldly challenging audiences to consider their own responses to such issues themselves. Gladly recommended. 8/10

A whisper movie to say the least. I had to turn the volume up high and turn the subtitles on just to get by this movie. It's just slowly paced and just a lot of the main lead sighing heavily. After 20 minutes I was disobedient and turned it off.

Externally slow and lagged. The concept of the movie is interesting but the way the movie was shot was so slow and boring, every scene felt like it was dragging.

I was hoping for something good by Sebastian Lellio after watching 'Fantastic Woman' in a theatre couple of months ago. This was a disaster and not enough story to make a film out of it. The editing of this film did not make any sense. One star for the cinematography.

Nobody will deny that erotic scenes between Rachel W. and Rachel A. are quite an asset; however, thats pretty much the only point worth seeing in this movie. It seems like the movie actually does not bring anything new, except for the picture of a desire forbidden in a certain community, along with the women emancipation, again, forbidden in a certain community. This is all pretty much seen in like 80% of LGBT movie, so the viewer more or less pretty much knows what every next scene will be about. There are a lot of cliches. The narration is too slow for a plot that already contains common places. The only source of slightly picante trigger might be the character played by Rachel Adams, rabi's wife and school teacher, who quite happily made an escape to a lesbian sex, without much hesitation, immediately when she had a chance - the audience might expect a little bit more hesitation about it, but there was no any. Of course that nobody would expect that rabi's wife would leave all her life after one night of passionate sex with someone who is not her husband. So in the end, nothing big happens, except that one sex scene, in which especially Rachel Adams acts greatly.

Depicting the problems that can arise when deeply held spiritual beliefs clash with notions of personal freedom, Disobedience is the story of a forbidden love given a second chance. Based on Naomi Alderman's 2006 novel, written for the screen by Sebastián Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, and directed by Lelio, the film covers some of the same thematic territory as Lelio's previous features; Gloria (2013) deals with a 58-year-old divorcée trying to re-enter the dating scene by frequenting singles-bars, and Una Mujer Fantástica (2017) looks at a transgender waitress trying to come to terms with the death of her boyfriend, whilst also navigating a prejudiced society. In Disobedience, Lelio turns his attention towards a lesbian relationship within London's relatively insular Modern Orthodox Jewish community. What all three films have in common is the centrality of a complex and strong woman facing up to (almost exclusively patriarchal) societal hostility. Kind of like a cross between Carol (2015) and Apostasy (2017), Disobedience eschews melodrama, and is uninterested in presenting a binary story where faith is the Big Bad. Although it is certainly critical of the strictures that can result from a rigid application of Halacha (Jewish religious laws) and/or a literal interpretation of the Taryag Mitzvot (613 Commandments), the community itself is depicted respectfully, with the most representative Jewish character arguably the most sympathetic figure in the film. Although things can be far too on the nose from time to time, Lelio's subtle and non-intrusive direction more than compensates for that, and overall, this is a fine film, both thought-provoking and moving.

The film opens with Rav Kruschka (Anton Lesser) abruptly dying in the midst of a service. In New York, his estranged daughter Ronit (Rachel Weisz) gets a call informing her of his death, and she returns home, heading to the house of Dovid (a superb Alessandro Nivola), her childhood friend, and Kruska's protégé. Although the community isn't especially happy to see her back, Dovid offers her a spare room. She accepts and is stunned to learn he is married to Esti (Rachel McAdams), another childhood friend. The film then takes places over the next few days as the community prepare for Krushka's levaya (funeral), as it becomes clear that Ronit and Esti were once more than friends, and the more time they spend in one another's company, the more their suppressed feelings for one another come to the surface.

Thematically, Disobedience is more concerned with the clash of views that results from Ronit's return than it is with condemning the beliefs of the community per se. When she first arrives at Dovid's house, she instinctively reaches out to hug him, forgetting about negiah (the forbidding of physical contact between men and women not related by blood, or married), and he immediately, although not unkindly, recoils. Later, there is an exceptionally awkward (but very funny) Shabbat meal, where Ronit seems to take great delight in being as outrageous as possible, riling up the assembled guests with her progressive worldview. This kind of ideological conflict, however, is also found within the characters themselves. Esti, for example, is torn between her desire for Ronit on the one hand, and her commitment to Dovid on the other. For her part, Ronit too internalises discord; although she has been estranged from him for many years, she is genuinely hurt to learn just how completely Krushka had divorced himself of her memory, seen most clearly when his obituary refers to him as "sadly childless".

Tellingly, during the Shabbat dinner, Dovid tries to play peacekeeper, whilst a couple of cutaways to Esti show her smiling to herself as Ronit burrows under the skin of those present. This kind of delicate touch on Lelio's part can be seen throughout the film, with numerous wordless gestures allowing the actors to convey backstory in lieu of exposition. For example, after Ronit arrives, although Dovid recoils when she tries to hug him, and although when she tries to light up a cigarette in his kitchen, he asks her to smoke in the garden, he accompanies her outside, shielding the flame from the wind in a gesture both kind and intimate. Another excellent example is found later that night as Dovid and Esti prepare for bed, and Esti gently and playfully strokes his beard, suggesting her genuine affection for him.

On paper, the story might lend itself to a condemnation of the kind of social suffocation and emotional repression that can result from fundamentalism. Instead, however, the film spends time building a respectful, if not idealised, picture of the community's beliefs and practices. A key part of this respect is Dovid himself, an inherently decent and honourable man. In a less nuanced film, Dovid would be a fire-and-brimstone obstacle to Ronit and Esti's happiness, a Roger Chillingworth-type. Instead he is presented as someone who, like Esti, faces a difficult choice - that between his communal position and his faith on the one hand, and his genuine love of Esti and affection for Ronit on the other; his lifelong devotion to the Tanakh conflicting with the modern day sensibilities. Indeed, perhaps Dovid's most salient characteristic is internal conflict. This is manifested aesthetically in a scene where he is addressing the synagogue. Lelio films the scene in such a tight close-up, that every time Nivola moves even slightly off his mark, he goes out of focus. It's a brilliant example of content generating form, and is typical of Lelio's directorial lightness of touch.

However, for all that, the film never lets you forget that this is a community of negiah, where married women must wear a sheitel (wig) in public, and where the genders are strictly divided at religious services. As Ronit and Esti discuss their sexuality, Esti points out that she and Dovid have sex every Friday night, "as is expected", and that the reason she was married to Dovid in the first place was that Krushka hoped "marriage would cure" her, a concept not far from homosexual conversion therapy. In this sense, although respectful of the community, the film does challenge some of the tenets of their belief system, particularly its myopic sexism. In this, Disobedience fits very much into Lelio's oeuvre, with all three of his films dealing with repressive milieus placing restrictions on women.

Obviously, a major theme throughout is sexuality. Much has been made of the sex scene between Ronit and Esti, with some critics accusing it of being little more than titillation at best, a graphic example of the male gaze at worst. However, this is to completely miss the point of the scene in relation to the whole. There are actually two sex scenes in the film; one between Ronit and Esti, and the other between Esti and Dovid. And although they couldn't be more different, they also couldn't exist without one another, as the abandonment, lust, and sense of pressure being released when Esti is with Ronit contrasts sharply with the detached, formulaic, and passionless scene with Dovid; the two scenes explicitly comment on one another. In this, they recall the sex scenes in A History of Violence (2005) and La vie d'Adèle (2013), two sets of two scenes which, again, comment upon and contextualise one another. The scene between Ronit and Esti is the physical manifestation of the characters' long-repressed desire. It's a wholly justified narrative moment, and a necessary beat for the two characters. It's not an aside or a piece of voyeuristic male fantasy, it's the centre of the whole film.

If I had one major criticism, it would be that although Lelio's direction is extremely subtle, some of his and Lenkiewicz's writing choices are spectacularly on the nose. The opening sermon is a good example - a religious diatribe whose subject is mankind's freedom to choose, the concomitant ability to disobey, and the notion that freedom is impossible without sacrifice, in a film about these very same issues. Another example is that Dovid and his yeshiva students are discussing the one book of the Tanakh dealing with sexuality rather than spirituality, the Song of Songs, whilst Esti's secondary school students are studying adultery in Othello. The worst example of this, however, is found when Ronit and Esti go to Krushka's house and Ronit turns on the radio, which just so happens to be playing The Cure's "Lovesong", a song which perfectly encapsulates their situation ("Whenever I'm alone with you/You make me feel like I am home again"). It's not exactly subtle. I'm also not a massive fan of Matthew Herbert's score, with its jaunty use of woodwinds cutting against the ominous tone of the narrative.

These two issues aside though, this is an excellently crafted film. Once again examining female desire, issues of patriarchal oppression, and profound self-doubt, Lelio delivers a mature and considered meditation on the conflict between faith and sexuality. Eschewing black and white criticism of secular isolationism, Lelio respects the milieu too much to cast it as the villain. Instead, there is an elegance to the way in which he depicts it. Equal parts sensual and spiritual, the lethargic pace and absence of any narrative fireworks will probably alienate some, especially those expecting a pseudo-porn movie, but for the rest of us, this is thoughtful and provocative cinema in the best sense of the term.

Usually this type of movies goes really wrong. But "Disobedience" has overcame this difficult subject with the absolute stimulation and yet sensitive/rational directing choice of keeping it real. They managed to keep it "down to earth" so to speak. And the devotion of the two amazing actresses, Rachel Weisz and Rachel Mcadams absolutely lead this movie to success. Every scene was totally real, lively and believable. (And very very hooot!) Beautiful music, a little humor here and there. Well made, BRAVO!

A movie where wigs are snatched, spit is swallowed and Judaism is Orthodox. No lesbians die or get converted by a man in this beautiful movie. There are lots of kisses, shy looks, eye-sex, forbidden hand holding and only one f word. Rachel Weisz is a real sinnamon roll as rebellious Ronit, and Rachel McAdams slays playing cinnamon roll Esti. The ending is left open, hopefully for a sequel. Would recommend 10/10

I found myself thinking through half the movie how I could have done a better job. All the parts were there, but they were put together with chewing gum and duct tape instead of screws and glue.

Other movies use silence to build emotion, or let us feel the emotion that has already been building, but in this film I found myself staring blankly at the screen like my dog who was right next to me.

Even with the one surprise at the end I found myself wanting to feel something, but nothing was there. Maybe I had to much coffee earlier in the day, I don't know.

Disobedience A lesbian love story, depicting the longing and repression aspects of a forbidden love, which essentially makes it a greater romance film. It also holds a greater social message. The film tells people that it is okay to choose to become anything, even if it is something else, in the sense that it's against social norms or expectations. Some people are born into societies that don't receive them well, they by all means have the rights to decide themselves what exactly they want to do. Everyone is free to choose. Hence the name of the film, disobedience. Although the first impression of the title hints an act that's frowned upon, but as the film progresses it unfolds itself and reveals to be a story about self-liberation, acceptance and compromise. In the end we see that the love story does not progress in the direction that is expected, where the characters do not end up together, perhaps ironically 'disobeying' the audience's expectations.