Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Screenplay: Lawrence Kasdan, Barbara Benedek
Starring: Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, William Hurt
Country: US
Running Time: 105 mins
Year: 1983
BBFC Certificate: 15
How do you top writing back-to-back scripts for two of the greatest, most successful blockbusters of all time? That was the question facing Lawrence Kasdan at the beginning of the 1980s, following his work on The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. For Kasdan, the answer was simple: you don’t even try. Instead, he spent the decade using the influence and goodwill he had accumulated to get projects made that no-one else was making. With Body Heat and Silverado, he got studio backing to revive out of favour genres, film noir and the western. With The Big Chill and The Accidental Tourist, he made quirky, adult dramas that dealt with issues his contemporaries seemed keen to avoid.
The Big Chill grew out of Kasdan’s experiences as a student at the University of Michigan in the late-1960s and early 1970s. These were the peak years of Vietnam protest and campus rebellion and Kasdan wondered what had happened to that energy and radicalization in the years since. To explore these questions, he came up with a scenario: a group of 1960s college friends who have, to varying extents, drifted apart from their ideals and each other since graduation, are brought back together in the 1980s by the unexpected suicide of one of their number. At the funeral and subsequent weekend together, his death forces them to evaluate their own lives and how their priorities have changed.
Contemplating death and compromised values were not obvious topics for an 80s studio movie, and a brief outline of the group’s career paths makes it sound heavy going. There’s the protester who now runs a successful sportswear chain, the actor who became a heart-throb TV cop, the wounded Vietnam vet turned drug dealer, the aspiring novelist who writes for People magazine, the mother who settled for a safe, unfulfilling marriage, and the lawyer who stopped defending the poor when she realised how many of them were guilty. But what could have been a depressing, didactic exercise is immediately engaging and often joyous, thanks to the quality of the characters, the exceptional cast, and a truly phenomenal soundtrack.
The key is that Kasdan approaches their experiences with compassion rather than judgement. The aim of The Big Chill is not to blame his generation for failing to follow-through on the potential of their youth, but to understand how and where they changed course. As they assemble for their friend Alex’s funeral, each of the aforementioned characters is aware that their life has not worked out as planned. Some, such as married couple Harold (Kevin Kline) and Sarah (Glenn Close) have made peace with their situation. He runs the sportswear chain and she is a doctor and they have become a valued part of their South Carolina community. Alex was staying in their guesthouse when he died, and so they are the natural choice to host the unintended reunion.
Most of their friends are much more conflicted. As the actor, Sam, Tom Beringer exudes easy-going charm, but under the surface of his success runs a river of doubt about his worth and ability. Meg the lawyer (Mary Kay Place), Michael the journalist (Jeff Goldblum) and Karen (JoBeth Williams) with the boring husband, are much more open about their disillusionment. Of the visitors, it is Nick the drug dealer who seems most content with his position. An added complication is the presence of Alex’s much younger girlfriend, Chloe (Meg Tilly), who not only creates tension between several of the male characters, but also serves as a poignant reminder of the others’ vanishing youth.
Perhaps The Big Chill’s greatest success is how believably it establishes the core group as old friends. Even at this difficult time, they are comfortable and funny together. As the weekend progresses, Harold insists on playing music from their college days, inspiring group singing and dancing infectiously presented in montage. Even when discussions and revelations become more difficult, Kasdan and his co-writer Barbara Benedek never forget that college friends know how to make each other laugh.
If there is a criticism, it’s that the film lets its characters off a little too easily. By stressing the difficulty and complexity of adult life (the big chill of the title) compared to the warm, forgiving world on campus, it implies the ideals of the 1960s were childish and unachievable while absolving the likes of Harold and Susan for the selfish turn society took in the 1980s. But at a time when ‘Boomer’ has become an insult due to the generation’s failings, The Big Chill is a welcome reminder of the people behind the stereotypes, at once a beguiling evocation of a specific historical moment, and a universal ode to the importance of friendship.
Film: 
The Disc
This is the same edition of The Big Chill that Criterion put out in the US in 2014, and it’s a very good, if not brilliant presentation. Mainly shot in muted colours with flat lighting, the film was never going to wow visually, but the transfer is clean with strong, consistent detail. The soundtrack is offered in mono and 5.1, with the latter presenting the music with more punch.
For extras, Criterion include the hour-long documentary made for the 1998 DVD, with all of the major participants appearing. There are some good anecdotes, and a fun disagreement about the plausibility of a late plot development, and everyone clearly remembers the production fondly. Kasdan discusses a late change he made during the edit, removing a lengthy flash-back sequence from the end of the film where we would have seen the friends during their college days. Famously, this included Alex, played by Kevin Costner in what would have been his first major role. During test screenings, however, the flashback proved confusing and unnecessary and it ended on the cutting room floor. Though nearly 10 minutes of deleted scenes are on the disk (also carried over from the DVD), they are all from early in the film. The flashback is not included and Kasdan has said he doesn’t want it to be seen.
New for the (2014) Criterion, a 44 minute Q&A with Kasdan and the cast recorded for the film’s 30th anniversary in 2013 again displays the camaraderie between them, but the format is quite ungainly. There is also a 13 minute interview with Kasdan in which he briefly addresses the film’s development, influences (particularly The Rules of the Game) and legacy.
Disc/Package: 
Review by Jim Whalley
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