To Be Young Was Very Heaven-The Big Chill (1983) A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Big Chill, starring Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, 1983  

As a member of the generation of ’68 I have always thought those 1960s times were special-were as I put in the headline-a time when to be young was very heaven to use a phrase from the English poet Wordsworth when he was excited about the early days of the French Revolution. We made every mistake in the book, most notably underestimating the forces against us at the end of the day as we sought a “newer world” (that courtesy of Alfred Lord Tennyson). Mostly though we tried to survive, tried to eke out a space where we could do our experiments from drugs, sex, rock and roll to communal living and beyond. Then it all kind of disappeared, disappeared for those of us who did not head for the hills of old Vermont or Oregon where I hear there are still some refugees from those times. A lot of us, me too, took it with ill grace but we made our peace with the situation and moved on-moved back to the night to five world. That brings us to the film under review, The Big Chill, which chronicles that step back to the “real world” at a point in time, filmed the early 1980s, when a lot of us were full bore into jobs, family and getting ahead in the real world. Funny that 1980s look still has staying power some thirty odd years later when compared to what we are facing these days-our aging, health, our personal economies, the political  situation and above all the endless wars.

Here is the play. The Big Chill is a tribute to the idea of an ensemble cast of young up and coming actors who went through their paces here (and had staying power as they all went on to other films so no one shot Johnnies or Janies here). The ensemble cast is necessary because this one is centered on a “reunion” of eight classmates in the early 1980s from Michigan in who had been there during the uproarious 1960s. It is really seven because the eighth member, Alex, didn’t make it. Had committed suicide since he could no longer face the world that was evolving far away from his ideals. So the seven, four guys and three gals (a fourth gal, Chloe, Alex’s girlfriend brings it back to eight though-four and four in the coupling world).

So the surviving old classmates, all of them successful as to be expected from a major academic school, get themselves down to South Carolina one weekend for the funeral of the first to pass on in their group. They spent most of their time cutting up old touches, rekindling old college romances and taking a minute (but only a minute) to reflect on how far away from their youthful ideas they had come. Although that did not stop them from keeping on keeping on in their current lives. From the perspective of 2016 there are now two models of to be young was very heaven, the 1960s and the 1980s. I’ll take the former. See this one, again, if you are of a certain age.