‘Disobedience’ Trailer: Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams Rekindle a Passionate Romance

Weisz and McAdams are at the center of love, passion, repression, and freedom.
Disobedience

Weisz and McAdams are at the center of love, passion, repression, and freedom.

Sebastián Lelio, who is known for his timely, affecting narratives, has been a name to watch this awards season thanks to A Fantastic Woman, which recently received an Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film. His next film, Disobedience, only serves to pique our interest further. The first official trailer for the film dropped yesterday, and it looks to be suffocating and intoxicating, and it features what already appear to be powerhouse performances from Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.

The premise of Disobedience is easy enough to follow. Ronit (Weisz) and Esti (McAdams) have some history together that likely resulted in the former’s excommunication from their Orthodox Jewish community. Ronit returns after her father dies, disrupting family life, and she and Esti slowly and secretly rekindle their bond, the tension between them eventually giving way to a display of unadulterated passion for one another. Under the watchful gaze of their community, Ronit and Esti struggle to find the freedom in their love to be together.

Right away, it’s obvious that Weisz and McAdams’s chemistry is vital the success of Disobedience. Their performances act as a thread holding the film together. Weisz and McAdams just make it easy for us to root for Ronit and Esti. Each stolen glance between them is extraordinarily charged; they certainly look perfect for the film.

A role like Ronit suits Weisz incredibly well. There is something boldly enigmatic about her actorly presence, which she has successfully utilized in past projects before, such as Constantine, The Brothers Bloom, and My Cousin Rachel, to name a few. The Disobedience trailer reassures me that Weisz’s playful, inexplicable charm won’t go to waste.

The same praises can be said for McAdams, who has a rare gift of being able to easily transition between less serious commercial work and more demanding dramatic roles. McAdams thrives from Mean Girls to SpotlightSouthpaw to Sherlock Holmes; and several rom-coms are made bearable by her presence. It’s no stretch to believe she would knock Disobedience out of the park too. The film is slightly different from anything else she’s done so far, but that’s part of what makes this casting exciting.

The performances are the glue keeping Disobedience buoyant. Coupled with such an important story — it’s never a bad thing to have more LGBTQ inclusion in films — Disobedience already ticks all the boxes for a romance drama done right.

Disobedience arrives in cinemas April 27th. Here is the official synopsis:

“From a screenplay by Sebastián Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the film follows a woman as she returns to the community that shunned her decades earlier for an attraction to a childhood friend. Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.”

Sheryl Oh: Sheryl Oh often finds herself fascinated (and let's be real, a little obsessed) with actors and their onscreen accomplishments, developing Film School Rejects' Filmographies column as a passion project. She's not very good at Twitter but find her at @sherhorowitz anyway. (She/Her)