Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in Disobedience (Roadshow Films)

Lelio’s real strength is as a director of actors. Daniela Vega carried A Fantastic Woman with an indomitable performance in the lead role, and here, both Weisz and McAdams are committed and convincing. Weisz is an intuitive yet disciplined performer, whose emotions in any given scene are deeply felt but never indulgent. Her often sorrowful role in Disobedience recalls her part in Terence Davies’ sublime filmic adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s stage play The Deep Blue Sea (2011), which also concerned a love triangle. Disobedience is not as singular a film as that, but Weisz is always impressive, if almost always cast in these sort of deadly earnest roles that obscure what I suspect is a naturally dry wit.

McAdams, herself better known for comedic parts, is also strong, but the script gives her less to work with. For all of Lelio’s attention to the tangible rituals and practices of Orthodox life – and he has clearly done his research – his film lacks real curiosity as to the inner workings of faith. Esti is devoted to her religion and to her marriage in a way that seems inexplicable; inexplicable because Lelio never really demonstrates what, apart from propriety, keeps her tied to a way of life that requires her sexuality – which she is quite cognisant of – to be always severely repressed. Esti teaches at a Jewish girls’ school; there is a brief scene where she watches, through the classroom window, as her students sing a hymn. McAdams’s expression offers a glimpse of a woman whose beliefs clearly bring her more than a feeling of having fulfilled her obligations – she looks peaceable and wary, joyous and conflicted all at once. More of that exploration would have been welcome, but it never comes.

Alessandro Nivola and Rachel McAdams in Disobedience (Roadshow Films)

Still, Lelio does avoid making religious believers into easy villains. The film includes no flashbacks, but, through dialogue, a sense emerges of the late Rav as a leader whose sternness has left a legacy of mixed emotions, and who perhaps loved his estranged daughter more deeply than he could admit to. Dovid, who begins as the patriarchal heir, proves complex and expansive in his loyalties; the climactic scene takes place at synagogue, and hinges on Dovid’s own interpretation of his late mentor’s unfinished discourse upon free will. It feels like the film’s natural conclusion, but the scene is followed by a coda which, after the emotional restraint that has come before, is unnecessarily sentimental.

Disobedience (Roadshow Films), 114 minutes, directed by Sebastián Lelio, from the novel by Naomi Alderman. In cinemas 14 June 2018.

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