In Disobedience, Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a successful New York photographer, returns home to London after learning of her father’s death. Her old friend Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) offers to put her up during her stay, arousing what looks like jealousy from his wife, Esti (Rachel McAdams). Esti even seems moved to pay Dovid with renewed sexual attention in light of Ronit’s appearance. But competition over Dovid isn’t where the plot is heading.
The situation is complicated by the Orthodox Jewish milieu. Based on Naom Alderman’s novel, Disobedience is a story of love that still dares not speak its name in this particular community. Turns out Ronit’s lost love isn’t Dovid but Esti, who has been living a partly fulfilling life as wife and teacher at the Orthodox grade school while secretly tending a flame in her heart for the long absent Ronit. In New York, Ronit has neither been living as a lesbian or an Orthodox Jew. In early scenes before her return to London we glimpse Ronit engaging in anonymous sex with a male stranger. But in the Orthodox tradition, she rends her garments when hearing that her father died.
Disobedience acknowledges the complexity of human sexuality and emotions, the yearning to rebel and the pull of tradition, and the problematic relations between fathers and daughters. Ronit’s father is an esteemed rabbi, a community leader, whose disciples, especially Dovit (whom he treated as the son he never had), honored him on a level his daughter was unable to accept. Given his beliefs, the rabbi’s ideas about his daughter’s future did not include Esti.
The three main characters are sympathetically portrayed and their conflicting emotions and ideals are accorded respect. In locating the story within the Jewish tradition, the film begins with the rabbi’s final sermon, which remarked on the distinction between beasts, guided by instinct, and humans, the crown of creation for possessing free will. We all have the power to chose whether for right or wrong. Dovit is forced to consider that axiom in light of the revelations he experiences.
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