The Big Chill (1983)

God damn hippies. Ok, so I had to get that out. That, my friends, was my first words to say after the final credits were finished with this movie. Surprisingly my first viewing ever of this film, a film in which the soundtrack precedes the film, I found myself confused by the long lackluster cult-ish standing this film carries. Introducing a bold cast, "The Big Chill" fails, epically fails, due to the storytelling. How can there be such a lush cast, and the only one I cared about was the unseen, dead Alex? Perhaps it is the time that this film takes place. Follow this logic, it is an 80s film nostalgic about the 60s. Can a generation today understand this? I couldn't - I could understand the bones of the story, the idea that college friends could reunite and reminisce about different times, exchanging words about how life has treated them, but did it have to be so doom and gloom? Yes, it surrounds a funeral, but does everyone have to spend two hours griping about life? "Did anyone tell you that this would be fun?" Doom and Gloom everyone, doom and gloom.

This is a talking film. In a talking film, your characters have to be believable enough to carry the viewer throughout the full two hours. Alas, "The Big Chill" didn't have anyone that felt any emotion, that felt more than just readable lines, nobody that pulled me into a world that never existed, well, except for one. The only character that I thought was never discovered, never true to the screen, and darker than anyone imagines was Kevin Kline's Harold Cooper. While he seems to be the pushover, the everyman who has it all together, suddenly transforms into this dark being that felt like he had this hidden agenda. Sex with other women, always saying that he hated his friends, and his constant runs to escape from the world he has created - it intrigued me. Nobody else did that - everyone else just felt like carbon copies of someone else. Originality was just thrown out the door, Berenger, Place, Goldblum, Hurt, and even Close just felt normal, nothing surprising or exciting to talk about when the scene ends. Kline was it, oh, and Alex - who still, not to sound repetitive, was the strongest character in this feature. To have a talking film with nobody that can carry the film, ultimately hurts the overall themes and emotions that are supposed to be seeping through the print.

In the end, "The Big Chill" is a dated, over-populated film that misses the mark. As I listen to the documentary on the disc, studios didn't want to make this film, and I think they saw what I happened to see when I watched it. This inability to connect the decades. Today's generation could care less about this movie, technology, friendships, whatever - we are moving too far behind. Then, the characters were just bland. Nobody was a breakout character, or someone that I felt would be a connection to my life. The hype behind this film feel unjustified. The last entry in my "Essential Films of the 80s", this was my first yellow highlight with black mark, not to be watched again. I could suggest giving this to friends to show the darkness of "normal" life, but Jen said that would be too weird. Nonetheless, I just couldn't wrap my arms around this "classic", both characters and story just fell flat. Urg.