Criterion Blu-ray Film Review

The Big Chill (1983) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

A group of former college friends gather for a weekend reunion after the funeral of another of their college friends.

We open with a middle-aged father, Harold Cooper (Kevin Kline), bathing his young son. He hears his wife, Dr Sarah Cooper (Glenn Close), devastated on the phone. Looking up, he sees her ashen face. A montage begins with the strains of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”. Karen Bowens (JoBeth Williams) and Meg Jones (Mary Kay Place) stare despondently into space. Michael Gold (Jeff Goldblum) gets stressed over something small and has to be comforted by his partner. Sam Weber (Tom Berenger) has drunk several vodka miniatures on a flight. Nick Carlton (William Hurt) is popping pills as he drives his battered Porche down the highway. Interspersed, we see tight close-ups of a man’s tie getting done up by a woman’s hand with sexy red nails. We see his shoes being laced by this woman’s hand. Then, as the montage ends, we see his suit collar pulled over his wrist, covering the neatly stitched scars of his suicide…