Set in modern-day London, The movie starts with Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser), the most highly-ranked Rabbi in his community, sermonizing about angels, beasts, and humans who have “free will to make decisions.” And while delivering this speech, he keels over and dies. It sets the tone for a movie. Even if we don’t know what this movie will be about, we know this initial scene will impact. We then transition to New York City, where we meet a photographer named Ronnie (Rachel Weisz – The Constant Gardner, The Fountain), the only child of Rav Krushka. We learn that she left London after having being caught in a same-sex relationship with Esti (Rachel McAdams – The Notebook, Midnight in Paris) when they were adolescents (it isn’t explicitly stated as to when, but from what I gathered is that they are reconnecting for the first time some 10-15 years after that relationship became public, and don’t learn of the specific intimate details of that relationship, we know that it was physical).

In this conservative Jewish Orthodox community, anyone who breaks away from this norm is seen as an outcast. They don’t behave in the way that society expects them to act. But what if the actions that define them as disobedient are the only path that will allow them to live a happy and positive life? Ronnie leaves after the incident with Esti is learned about and has never returned. We can safely assume it has been somewhere between 15-20 years. After learning of her father’s death, Ronnie processes the death by getting drunk, having random sex in the bathroom of a bar, and ice skating before settling down and trying to figure out what she will do.

She returns home to her native home, a northern suburb of London called Herndon. Her presence is not received well, and it’s a surprise that she is there. Most people have no idea how to reach her, let alone the desire to contact her about the father of her father. Rav Krushka’s death is not just another death. The entire community feels it; thus, they feel overly committed to his funeral proceedings going honorably. Ronnie has no mother (I don’t believe we ever learn what happened to her) and no siblings. It is just her and her father. But, as she will read in his obituary, Rav Krushka has disowned his daughter for engaging in a same-sex relationship, so much so that the obituary says he has no children. And he has wholly written Ronnie out of his will.

We learn that before, and probably even during the sexual relationship between Ronnie and Etsi, they and Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola – You Were Never Really Here, A Most Violent Year) were best friends. Dovid, who is cousins with Ronnie, lukewarmly welcomes her when she shows up at his doorstep. Dovid is seen as the heir apparent to Rav Krushka. You can imagine his conflicting emotions here (trying to accept a best friend and cousins from his younger years while still understanding the societal norms and how her father would have viewed the situation). It’s tense at best (as an aside, I’m not sure I’ve ever known who Nivola is, but after looking at his filmography, he’s been in several movies I like.

Still, I constantly imagined what this movie might have been like with Michael Fassbender playing the lead). But Nivola does a fine job here, opening his home to his cousin and letting him know of his wife, Esti. Yes, Etsi. At this point in the movie, we don’t know the character’s backstory regarding the movie’s unfolding. But we certainly do by watching the trailer even one time. It brings up an interesting situation many of us might find ourselves in. It almost becomes the question of the day. What do we have? The ex of our current lover shows up at our doorsteps after years of being away. Do we welcome her? Do we try to distance her from our current partner? Do we have enough trust in our partner and the relationship developed with her that it doesn’t matter one way or another? Is it different when a partner once had a same-sex relationship with this person, and maybe you’re uncertain if that desire has ever fully been extinguished? There is a lot to unpack here, for sure.

Etsi is distant from Ronnie. We aren’t sure why she left or why she and Etsi have not connected since their relationship was discovered. There is extreme hurt on Etsi’s part, and she’s either denying it or so far over it that she’s unwilling to give Ronnie more than just the time of the day. But in this community,  the men of the family make the decisions, and Dovid decides Ronnie can stay in the guest room. At best, the situation is tense, and Dovid puts a lot of faith in his wife that whatever was between her and Ronnie is over. And, of course, we are only in the first third of the movie, and plenty will unfold over the next week while those close to Rav Krushka mourn his death and members of the community prepare for Dovid to take on that new role. Everybody is leery of Ronnie, and many wish she would return to New York. However, issues beyond her father’s can be addressed before they happen.

***Spoilers and Questions***

Before I get into the spoilers, I will say that the dynamics between the three leads are fantastic. Nobody is sure of each other. We don’t know if what is portrayed on the screen is what the characters feel or masking much more. Weisz is the lead here, but McAdams steals the show. Something is lurking about her from the onset of the movie. And her pain becomes more and more apparent as the film progresses. Whereas Ronnie has moved on from her relationship with Etsi, Etsi has not. And as the week progresses, it is only a matter of time before Ronnie and Etsi get to the heart of the issue. However, the way that McAdams goes about playing Etsi might be her best performance since The Notebook. She is so submissive when we first meet her, but as she reconnects with Ronnie and sees that she hasn’t changed much and is the person she fell for many years ago, there is no denying her want and need for this woman. It is heartbreaking when Etsi tells Ronnie that she doesn’t and that he has never loved Dovid the way he loves her. I didn’t know of the tradition of weekly Friday sex between husband and wife in this culture, and this movie is graphic enough to show that she can achieve orgasm with Dovid, but their relationship is not what she wants. Instead, it was just what was expected of her to do.

But when Ronnie reenters her life, all those feelings we have experienced when we have loved and lost and reconnected come rushing back, and she becomes an entirely different person. Etsi passionately wants to reconnect with Ronnie, and it’s just a matter of time before they do, but she does have a husband who maybe she doesn’t fancy sexually, but one who is a good man who cares for her and loves her the way that any person would want to be loved. So she’s in this constant torment. And, just by watching the trailer, you know that the two act on their desires, but only after a meaningful conversation about love, sexuality, and faith. And Leilo doesn’t hold back when showing the sex scenes between the two women. Watching this movie reminded me of all the satisfactory and memorable films, such as Blue is the Warmest Color, Call Me By Your Name, and Take This Waltz. The lesbian sex scenes in Blue is the Warmest Color are like nothing I had ever really seen in a mainstream movie before. Those scenes were hot and erotic, and the filming of them was highly controversial because of what the director of that movie asked them to do. Contrast that with Call Me By Your Name, a very passive and tame movie portraying same-sex attraction.

Then Take This Waltz shows an unsatisfied and brilliant Michelle Williams wanting to engage in an affair with a neighbor she is highly attracted to, but who tortures herself with guilt because she doesn’t want to hurt her husband (Seth Rogen in his finest film to date). In Disobedience, we needed the sex scenes to show how sensual and sexual these two women found each other. And, of course, after acting on their desires, there is guilt, regret, and confusion, almost all of which Etsi expresses. In fact, for a while, I was uncertain if Ronnie was reconnecting with the love of her life or if this was just another fling. It certainly wasn’t for Etsi, who we can safely assume, based on a conversation with Ronnie, that she had only had two sexual partners in her life (Ronnie and Dovid). But the final quarter of this movie felt a little weird to me. And I’ll explain my questions below.

Usually, I have a spoilers section, but I also have some questions about this particular movie. The first is why Ronnie is completely ostracized, whereas Esti is not. Is it because Ronnie fled while Esti stayed to be “rehabilitated”? Did Esti suffer enough “punishment” where she has been forgiven? Was it because Ronnie was the daughter of a highly-ranked Rabbi, whereas Esti was not? Was it because Ronnie was older, and some might think that she seduced Esti into the act? I don’t believe we are given the ages of the women in the film, but Weisz is seven years older than McAdams in real life. Finally, it was never really answered why Ronnie is unwelcomed, whereas Esti is. Still, the most logical conclusion is that Ronnie left the community after discovering the relationship and never returning.

We also learn that Esti has a mental disorder. Whether she is messed up from the incident with Ronnie (probably), whether it is something else, or whether it is a combination of a variety of different things, we learn that Esti isn’t whole in the mind. But much like Tully, the last movie I reviewed before Disobedience, this discovery is almost an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be. In both films, the issue of mental health (in both cases, it seems to be a case of depression) is brought up way too late in the story, and, in both movies. Now I am aware that both of these movies were based on novels and that a novel has much more time to develop storylines and characters than a film does, so in both cases, I’m going to give the novel the benefit of the doubt that these issues are more on the front burner. However, I can never be sure unless I read each one (and maybe I will). In Tully, the reveal (while weak) was necessary for the story’s conclusion. With Disobedience, it was not. We know that Esti is not whole, but it could be because she is a lesbian who denies herself by living in a passionless relationship. I would have liked to see more about how the mental illness of Etsi came into play. But I will not take that away from the direction of the screenplay as I did with Tully. And the reason is that it was a part of Etsi’s character, but maybe not as big of a part as Tully’s.

Likewise, I understand the constraints of adapting a novel for film. And Leilo was very purposeful and direct while adhering to the minutes he had for this movie. I would have liked to learn more about what was happening between some of the scenes in this movie, but I understand that that was not always possible. So, I understood the advances of his characters from scene to scene. I understood his pacing. I understood what he was trying to do and how he was unveiling that. So, in some sense, I wondered, at times, why even bring in Etsi’s mental health at all. Was it truly needed? Did it advance the story, or would it have been hindered if it had not been brought up? Couldn’t it just be what (I would assume) would be the case with a gay person not fulfilling her sexual desires by being in a heterosexual relationship? For me, that was enough.