REVIEW: Disobedience is a sensual, elegiac triumph for Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams

REVIEW: Disobedience is a beautiful, elegiac drama based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, staging a tender, yet tenderising clash between a rigid faith and an unshakeable conviction.

DISOBEDIENCE (MA15+)

Rating: Four stars (4 out of 5)

Director: Sebastian Lelio (A Fantastic Woman)

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola.

Finding a love beyond a belief

A beautiful, elegiac drama based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, Disobedience presents a tender, yet tenderising clash between a rigid faith and an unshakeable conviction.

That faith is everywhere - almost oppressively so - inside a close-knit Orthodox Jewish community in northern London.

As for the conviction, it too borders on overwhelming : a belief that someone deemed to be the wrong one for you is also the only right one there will ever be.

Scene from the movie Disobedience. Roadshow Films.

Upon the death of her father, Ronit (Rachel Weisz) reluctantly steps back inside a world that brusquely shut her out a decade ago. The reason for this cruelly enforced exile was her abiding love for another woman, Esti (Rachel McAdams).

Now fate is drawing the pair towards each other once more, by virtue of an emotional connection neither ever completely severed. Will faith find a new way to drive Ronit and Esti apart? Or will conviction triumph over all?

The answers come through loud and clear via the deceptively atmospheric direction of Sebastian Lelio (working in a very different mode from his recent Oscar-winner A Fantastic Woman) and two incredible performances from Weisz and McAdams.

The intense longing (and later, searing intimacy) they transmit to the viewer is almost unbearable to witness, charged with a damaging purity that does not leave scars, but will leave casualties.

Scene from the movie Disobedience. Roadshow Films.