The Big Chill (1983)
Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Had I seen this before: No, but I listened to the soundtrack a lot when I was a kid
With all due respect to Mr. Lawrence Kasdan, a man who not only wrote a famously impressive sequel but also directed one of my favorite underrated rom-coms, I approached this particular film confident in my understanding that it was not a movie For Me. It was, rather, an artifact to be examined with an anthropological eye, a sort of Rosetta Stone that would unlock the mysteries of the white yuppie Boomer. I also carried some miscellaneous baggage into the viewing: the vague idea that this movie was mostly propped up by the soundtrack; the random bit of trivia that Kevin Costner played the corpse at the beginning of the film but all his flashback scenes were cut; the memory of a Kevin Kline-starring SNL sketch from 1988 that spoils the climax, so to speak, of the Mary Kay Place story arc. (I would link it but there does not appear to be video of it anywhere online. And it was NSFW. And upon reflection, probably NSF 8-year-olds, which is what I was when it aired. The theme of this post is "The 80s, man!!!")
The first thing that struck me was something that comes up a lot when watching older movies, which is that, due to the way they're styled, actors who are several years younger than I am now look more like adults than I ever will. It happens all the time and it's confusing. I think it's exacerbated when the "young adults" are about the age that my parents were in that time period--I'm almost exactly the same age as the actor playing the little kid in the opening scene. These 36-year-olds are my parents! Except Jeff Goldblum, who is somehow wearing a pair of glasses with frames that are currently in fashion again. How does he do that? Anyhow, this is definitely a universal problem that affects everyone and is not related to the fact that I still dress like I did when I was 15.
I was not disappointed with the Drakkar Noir-scented eightiesness of it all--peachy pink couches, ticking biological clocks, microscopic running shorts, former-idealists-turned-rich-bored-assholes, cocaine, QUAALUDES. I was disappointed in Kevin Kline's accent. And Kevin Kline's character. You know what? I've never found Kevin Kline less attractive. And I'm including times when he played some real maniacs. And Mr. Fischoeder!
As expected, I couldn't ever really vibe with the thing--one moral of the story seems to be that when you grow up you must fully give yourself over to the cruel Reagan-era gods of capitalism or else you're being childish. As their elder, I gotta disagree. Greedy whippersnappers! And Glenn Close, bless her, manages to sell the sort of lingering-hippie commune-living partner-sharing stuff as pretty sweet but that's also not really for me. But I do like that it's a hangout movie full of appealing actors just having conversations. I want Hollywood to make a million more adult dramedies about people who have feelings and jokes. We exist!
Line I repeated quietly to myself: "We weren't, uh...conducive."
In conclusion: I expected this movie to be uniformly insufferable and instead found it merely irritating in places. A nice surprise! It was also a very reasonable one hour and forty-five minutes, which goes a long way with me. If I do continue on in this vein for a while you will have to endure my constant complaints about the fact that movies now are too long why are they so long directors in the past told compelling stories in under two hours please filmmakers I'm begging you.
Southern Belle Funeral Sandwiches from Grilled Cheese Social
To this movie's credit, there are a bounty of food scenes to choose from--I appreciate when art acknowledges that eating is a critical part of our relationships with other people. There's a group dinner with tossed salad and thrown-at-the-wall spaghetti, a midnight snack that as far as I could tell consisted of mayonnaise on white bread with a glass of milk (everyone in this film is an extremely white person) (except Meg Tilly who I believe is of partly Chinese descent but she's an outsider and not part of the gang, just further proves my point), a big bowl of popcorn for the football game, Chinese take-out, and a pancake breakfast with coffee and OJ. But I wanted to represent the massive funeral spread for poor faceless Kevin Costner in the beginning of the film. Since it takes place in South Carolina, as unconvincingly-evidenced by Kevin Kline's accent, I went with a Southern staple: the funeral sandwich.
I think it would be pretty difficult to add brown sugar, dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and a full stick of butter to a tray of sandwiches and not end up with something that tastes good. But I did struggle with reheating these after letting them marinate in the refrigerator--the suggested time in the oven was 15-20 minutes and these were still cold in spots after 35. We just ate them that way because this was a quick dinner before an evening school event, but actual mourners deserve truly melty cheese! Anyway, I don't know if these would make me feel better were I grieving credited-but-not-featured Kevin Costner but they certainly wouldn't make me feel worse.
Up next: I have no idea, this is just a placeholder to remind me to get organized enough in the future to already know what the next movie will be. Welcome to my planning notes. Pay no attention to the lady underneath the weighted blanket. Also, I've been trying to get comments to work again and they just...won't. So I guess if you want to discuss any of the above, send me a raven or something.
