All of us at some point have or will go through a time in our lives where we look back on what we dreamed life would be and what it actually became. In those introspective times, few people will be happy with how it all turned out. Some will see the difference and accept that things turned out for the better, even if those dreams of the past still linger in the mind. Others feel depressed that the realities couldn’t possibly live up to the expectations of the past. This is a universal thing that nearly everyone goes through at some point in their lives. For me, now in the final year of my forties, I have a better understanding of the mid-life crises than I did when I first encountered 1983’s The Big Chill. This film just didn’t speak to me when I was thirty, the way it does now that I’m knocking on the door of fifty.
No one is the same person as they were when they were in high school or college. We grow a lot in the years after graduation, and we fall into life’s routines, and it sucks. Yet it is what it is, and everyone must go through it. Making friends along the way is part of that, too. Sometimes, in my case especially, those friendships don’t last. I have a few people that I occasionally hear from through social media but no one that I would consider a true friend going back to those days. Still, just a couple of years ago, one of those people died suddenly, and it threw me a hefty dose of introspection when it happened. It mattered not that I hadn’t seen or spoken to this person directly in more than thirty years.
The Big Chill speaks to these introspections from a variety of points of view. It’s about a group of former college friends who have gathered together after over a decade apart because one of them, Alex (played virtually off-screen at all times by Kevin Costner), has committed suicide. Over the course of one weekend, these remaining friends gather together in one of their homes and catch up, reminisce, and reexamine their own lives as well as their lost friend’s. These seven people, representing the boomer generation, all see their lives in various degrees of disappointment as they are now in their thirties and staring into the void of middle age. One of these, Nick (William Hurt), is seeing parallels in his own life with that of Alex’s and fears that he may be the next to call it quits.
Throughout the course of this single weekend, we learn about who each of these people are, how their relationships with each other fit together, and their fears of the present going on into the future. This is the type of film that will mean a lot more to middle-aged audiences than it will for younger people. When I originally saw this in my twenties, nothing in it resonated. Now, in my forties, I related to nearly everything. Life has a way of changing your perspective the longer you live it, and I’m certain that should I revisit this one ten years from now, it will play differently to me again.
Lawrence Kasdan is primarily known to modern audiences as the writer of The Empire Strikes Back, what is considered by many to be the best of the Star Wars films. Yet this talented writer is much more than just that film. His credited contributions began with that film but continue on to include many genre films, a specialty of his that he often would rejuvenate, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, and Silverado. His work on The Big Chill would go on to inspire more films and television focused on people entering the midpoint in their lives, including the popular television program Thirty-Something.
There is no denying his writing talent. These are fully fleshed-out characters, and we get a good understanding of who they are without a single line of dialogue. The whole opening of the film is a montage intercut between shots of Alex being prepared for burial. We get a brief glimpse of his wrist with the stitches in it, telling us he died from suicide. Between these shots, we are introduced to the main cast. We see Sarah (Glenn Close) and Harold (Kevin Kline) taking care of their kids. Sarah gets a phone call that we don’t hear, and when she comes back to Harold, there are tears rolling down her face. She has obviously just been informed of Alex’s death, and it has affected her greatly. Michael Gold (Jeff Goldblum) has apparently just been informed, too, as we see him trying to write and struggling with it, taking his frustration out on the pages. He is a gossip columnist who writes for People Magazine but can’t put word to page as he is processing the loss of a friend.
Sam Weber (Tom Berenger) is first seen on a flight on his way to the funeral. He is approached for an autograph by a flight attendant who has his picture on the front of a magazine. He is an actor that stars in a Magnum P.I. type of television show and is drowning his sorrows in shots of vodka. Nick Carlton is popping pills of all sorts in a bid to calm himself before the funeral. He is an intelligent man who has yet to find himself and his calling in life. Instead of staying with steady employment, he has bounced from job to job, just like Alex, and lately has taken on drug dealing to get by. On top of the prescription meds, he also has a nasty cocaine habit. Karen (JoBeth Williams) is married but still harbors romantic feelings for Sam that he encourages but doesn’t pursue. Lastly, Meg (Mary Kay Place) is growing desperate to mother a child, though she doesn’t want to be in a relationship. She is seeing opportunities in this setting to approach some of the men to perhaps father a child with her without any of the commitments of being a father.
This story involving Meg has been looked at in retrospect as being the most problematic. After all, artificial insemination was a thing at this time and would have been a better solution to her desires than what she is proposing. When she addresses having one of the guys father a child with her, Sarah willingly offers her husband, Harold, without even consulting him first before making that suggestion. She freely admits that she had had an affair with Alex, the deceased, five years prior, and perhaps she is seeing this as an opportunity for her husband to get even with her, though that is never spoken of outright. Whether that is the case or not, it is still a rather off-putting plot point in the film, and when we see Harold with Meg later, it just feels wrong. Harold, for his part, is always trying to help people, too. He and Sarah were housing Alex at the time he killed himself. He makes some of the same offers to Nick, later, further fueling the feeling of sameness between Nick and Alex. Even with this character trait, it seems odd that he is so willing to agree to help Meg the way that he does.
In many ways, seeing this group of people getting reacquainted feels like what going to a class reunion must be like. People you haven’t seen for years get together, complain about their lives, get drunk or high, and feel reminisce about the good old days. It’s primarily why I have refused to attend any of my reunions over the years, though I could easily make it to one. There is just something inherently depressing about seeing these people and realizing that you’re all getting older, high school is just as far in the past for them as it is for you, and that no one is the same as you remember them. They gather together every few years, get drunk, and try to accept that this is their lives now. It’s almost as depressing as gathering together when one of them dies.
Kasdan has tapped into that raw feeling in such a natural way that makes the film just a little uncomfortable for someone at my age and state in life. But a film like this needs to be uncomfortable; otherwise, it would ring hollow. There are pieces of each of these characters to be found in any sufficiently sized group of friends, and seeing that in one’s own life is bound to be uncomfortable. It’s raw, emotional, and at times too honest. It also has one heck of a soundtrack that can at times overshadow the scene and at other times augment it. It’s a slice-of-life film that hits a little too close to home at times, yet that is its real strength and why it holds so much power over those who are at a similar point in their journey through life.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Michael Shamberg
Best Supporting Actress: Glenn Close
Best Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen: Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek
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Release Date: September 28, 1983
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, and Don Galloway
Directed By: Lawrence Kasdan
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