The Big Chill (film review)

First off, let me say this is a movie with a great cast of actors, most of them going on to really define themselves in other movies as true talents. That being said, this movie is really dated, and if it was other people acting in it would fail completely. Having lived in Ann Arbor for five years on the campus of the University of Michigan, I can honestly say that the director truly did capture the smug self importance of university of Michigan alumni. This he got down perfectly, as well as the narcissism and ego of the baby-boomer generation, who hypocritically dove head first into greed and money after sowing revolutionary oats in the sixties.

But most of all, this film seems to be about the confusion and despair those of that generation were during the early years of the , capitalist 80's. The characters reconnecting after one of their college friends killed himself because he felt he was a failure, speaks volumes for the self induced pressures placed on those of that time. Real or imaginary, failure didn't seem to be an option.

Tom Berrenger as the movie star character of J.T. Lancer, a take off of T.J. Hooker of course, seems the most out of place amongst this group of friends, he doesn't seem like a Michigan graduate, way too good looking and far less cerebral. Jeff Goldblum would be perfect, he would have been a student and graduate from Michigan, intelligent, smug, self important, selfish.

The woman who wants a baby, the character played by Mary Kaye Place, she claims she just wants someone to "Plant the seed" but when Jeff Goldblum offers she says something sarcastic about how it wasn't romantic, if she truly just wanted someone to plant the seed and nothing more romance shouldn't be a consideration. This of course is just one flaw in the film. Overall, at the time this came out, and for people of a certain generation I'm sure this was an important film, but now in this day and age it is way less relevant, as many wish they had the luxury of choosing to reject capitalism, most are struggling to get by during this time of the great reset.