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The Big Chill poster

The Big Chill

year 1983decade 80sdirector Lawrence Kasdangenre Comedygenre Drama

105 minutes

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Tom Berenger Sam Weber
Glenn Close Sarah Cooper
Jeff Goldblum Michael Gold
William Hurt Nick Carlton
Kevin Kline Harold Cooper
Mary Kay Place Meg Jones
Meg Tilly Chloe
JoBeth Williams Karen Bowens
Don Galloway Richard Bowens
James Gillis Minister
Ken Place Peter, the cop
Jon Kasdan Harold and Sarah’s son
Ira Stiltner Running Dog driver
Jacob Kasdan Autograph seeker
Muriel Moore Alex’s mother
Meg Kasdan Airline hostess

The Big Chill | The Rewatchables

host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennessey format Birthday Episode
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Producer credits not yet identified.

Roger Ebert's review

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:31:22Read transcript
  • The podcast states a two-and-a-half-star score from Raj.
  • The quoted review calls the film technically splendid and precise about its characters.
  • The review says the lack of payoff may itself be the movie’s message.
  • The hosts think the prose sounds more like a three- or three-and-a-half-star response.

Casting What-Ifs

Hurt’s tailored role; Williams and Close as Meg; Cates as Chloe; Kline wanting Michael; disputed Penn rumor

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:25:41Read transcript

Half-Assed Internet Research

Santini house; Michigan football; studio rejections; Nasatir; deleted Costner scene; hostile retrospective

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:29:39Read transcript
  • The Great Santini house in Beaufort, South Carolina, was reused for this movie.
  • A reunion documentary recounts a sound technician recording what the crew treated as a ghost.
  • The Michigan footage came from a 27–23 win over Michigan State in 1980.
  • The account says studios rejected the screenplay through seventeen pitches despite the writer’s hot career.
  • Marcia Nasatir backed the screenplay and is described as an early powerful female studio executive.
  • The reported deleted flashback recreated 1968 and showed Alex as a scruffy James Dean, but it did not work.
  • A 1998 Entertainment Weekly retrospective blamed the film for soundtrack albums, 30-something, boomer smugness, and Bill Clinton.
  • The hosts insist Kasdan’s self-critical view of the characters already anticipates that complaint.

Picking Nits

Touch-football staging; bedroom count; Running Dog stock and insider tip; bat reaction; recovered eulogy; Chloe staying

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:36:04Read transcript
  • The two-on-two game is criticized for instant blitzes, no Mississippi count, a cramped yard, and no route tree.
  • They suggest asking Letterboxd for better touch-football scenes. A participant remembers realizing he wanted to marry his wife after watching her beat a college roommate in three-on-three football.
  • The sleeping arrangements and size of the house and guest house are difficult to reconcile.
  • A small running-shoe company having tradable stock and Harold freely disclosing the deal seem implausible.
  • Nick is judged too calm when a bat flies through his window after cocaine.
  • Harold collapses during the eulogy but immediately becomes a composed host without anyone addressing it.
  • The hosts ask whether Meg Tilly’s character should hang around because she seems like a detached and weird outsider.
  • Her presence is defended as a younger outsider who exposes the group’s fixation on the past.

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Pregnancy; Rutledge fellowship; Alex’s decline; Michael’s club; generational identification; Lancer’s career; couples’ futures; Harold’s possible scheme

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:46:19Read transcript
  • Whether Meg got pregnant is explicitly left unknowable.
  • The importance of Alex’s declined Rutledge fellowship and whether he served in Vietnam remain unresolved.
  • The hosts debate whether they would invest in Michael’s club and doubt a club’s odds.
  • A generational tangent places the hosts between Gen X, boomers, and millennials.
  • Competing Sam career paths include four Lancer seasons followed by a legal drama, or leaving for unsuccessful films before returning to television; later sitcom roles and a revival are imagined.
  • Nick is predicted to be arrested before Harold divorces, while Harold and Sarah’s long-term marriage is doubted.
  • Nick and Chloe are expected to last only briefly because his Vietnam injury leaves him impotent.
  • Harold secretly hiring Nick to dislodge Chloe is proposed as a playful conspiracy.