When I was a young kid, my family and three other families (my families-not-related, because they were more than just friends) would take an annual trip to the Poconos together. For the kids, it was a weekend filled with sledding and goofing off. For the eight parents, it was a time to kick back and relax for once. One year, as a lark, my parents brought a poster for a movie, with the faces of the eight main characters cut out and replaced with the faces of the adults on this vacation. Seeing the poster was my informal introduction to The Big Chill.
But it took me until Your Favorite Movie to actually watch the damn thing. As it turns out, for my Dad, the poster wasn't just a funny joke; it was a poster for his favorite movie of all time. So I talked to him about it.
Since the movie is about a bunch of people hanging out together, it wouldn't've made sense for the discussion to be a one-on-one affair, so we brought some other folks along. Pam is in there, thankfully, as she often is. My Mom is there too, ready to argue about where exactly my parents first saw this movie. And finally, my Aunt Mimi, a.k.a. Mariellen McG*****, another family-not-related, stuck around to provide some good insights.
We didn't really talk too much about the movie itself, which is a good thing—if you want to learn more about The Big Chill, you could just, uh, go watch the movie? No, this discussion is exactly what I want from Your Favorite Movie. I want to use movies as a springboard to talk about personal shit. Even if that personal shit just ends up being a few Boomers talking about the good ol' days.
We got nostalgic on the front deck at our temporary Wildwood vacation house, and the conversation is below, lightly edited for clarity purposes (but without needed permissions, as New Jersey is a one-party consent state). Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dad: About who?
[laughter]
Joe: About having sex with people who are not your husband or wife.
Dad: ...Yes.
[laughter]
Joe: I guess The Big Chill has always been considered a quote unquote "adult movie" for me. Because the adults in my life, when we would go on vacation, talked about it. We had that poster. [Editor's note: The poster is explained in the introduction, just in case you are the type of person who does not read introductions.] So I did not watch it until I was thirty years old.
Dad: That's a good thing.
Joe: When I was watching it a couple weeks ago, I appreciated the fact that I waited until I was thirty. It was definitely a "thirty-year-old's" movie.
Dad: The issues that are dealt with in the movie are adult issues.
Joe: Did you watch the movie when it first came out?
Dad: Yes, we watched it... well, I didn't go to the movie theater to see it. I saw it on VCR.
Joe: In the '80s.
Mom: I thought we saw it at the Crest? [Editor's note: The Crest is an old, since-demolished movie theater in Northeast Philly. Check out a very short history HERE.]
Dad: No, I don't think we did.
Mom: I saw it with someone else then.
[laughter]
Dad: Your other boyfriend.
Mariellen: I think we saw it at the movies.
Dad: It was a big movie at the time.
Joe: A lot of star power.
Mariellen: It had an ensemble cast.
Joe: I guess what I'm most interested in is: You liked it then, you like it now. But you're significantly older now than you were then. Did your appreciation, or the shape of your appreciation, change in that time? Because, as a thirty-year-old, I thought it was a movie applicable to me. As an almost sixty-year-old, do you feel differently about the movie?
Dad: No, because it hit home when we watched it for the first time. And even though we were a little bit younger, they were still issues that we appreciated, and that we were dealing with. As you're growing up, and getting older. That's what it is—facing the reality of growing older.
Mariellen: I think I appreciate it more now, as an older person, with more experience.
Joe: Now that you're past the point where the characters in the story are. Now that you've faced those challenges already, of growing. You're not currently growing up. So The Big Chill to you now is more a nostalgia exercise... I dunno, tell me if I'm right or wrong. When you watch it now, it's like, "This is how it was."
Dad: This is what we went through, yeah. It's a realistic version of the issues. That's why I always liked it. It was realistic. Not every movie is realistic.
Mariellen: Life is messy, and I don't think until you've lived it for a while, do you know how messy it can be.
Joe: The characters in the movie are kind of realizing that for the first time. "Our good friend who killed himself kind of threw a wrench in our understanding of life." I guess.
Dad: And at the time, we were just on the cusp of seeing that. It hit home, that this is the way life is.
Joe: Another thing that interested me in that same vein was, I felt like the people in the movie were nostalgic themselves, for a previous time. When they themselves were younger. They were watching their college football team, and reliving their college days. They were listening to older music, ya know, the '60s.
Mariellen: Everyone has their glory days, and they were looking back at theirs.
Joe: It's cool that there's two levels of nostalgia at that point. You're nostalgic about the time portrayed in the movie, and the movie is nostalgic for a previous time.
Dad: Did you enjoy the movie?
Joe: Absolutely.
Dad: It's a great movie.
Joe: I think the thing I appreciated—and I guess this would be a good time to have you run through what happened in The Big Chill, which might be easier than some other movies—but I appreciated the whole sentiment of: a bunch of friends, stuck in a house, for whatever reason, and bouncing ideas off each other. Just spending time with each other, showing their love and their annoyance with each other. It definitely reminded me of times with my friends and family. Maybe even tonight, when we're all packed onto the deck, bouncing stories off each other.
Mariellen: I think a lot of it had to do with, they were together at a point in time, and they've all gone their own separate ways, and they bring that back—
Dad: They still have that connection.
Mariellen: Even though, ya know, one's a TV star, [etc]. I think that, the older you get, that happens. The friends that you were really close with when you're younger, you don't see them as often as you would like to now. You do different things in your life. But you come back together, and you still have that connection that you made when you were younger.
Joe: From the stories you were telling earlier, it seems like all you guys have been friends for a while. What's the distinction between, ya know, being friends with someone while you're young, and staying friends by the time you turn 60, versus being friends by the time you turn 30, and then losing touch. What makes the difference?
Dad: I don't know, that's tough. Because I have friends like that—like Kevin O'*****, the best man at my wedding. At the time—great friends, and that's why he was my best man. Ya know? And we've lost touch, and we don't hang out anymore. And... do I even want to hang out with him? Not really.
Joe: Mom, you might be helpful in this. What's the difference? What makes Aunt Mimi here still your friend, and other people who you don't hang out with not your friend anymore?
Mom: I guess because those people changed, right?
Joe: I don't know, I'm not near 60 yet. [laughter] "My friends right now will be my friends forever!"
Mom: Different values, and... they just change.
Mariellen: I think life events drive you closer to people, and drive wedges between you too. And I think your mom and I, we've just always been there for each other in the hard times. There are other people you come in contact with, you think they're your friends, and then you don't find out until bad things happen. I think sometimes, when those things happen, that's when you find out who your true friends are. Those are the friendships you hold onto. As you get older, you start to value that everyone hits a rough spot, things go wrong, tragedies happen... at least in my experience, I can say that I learned who my true friends were. And I value those friendships, and I work harder to maintain them over the years. Whereas the people who show their true colors—
Mom: Right, if they're not there for you—
Dad: Like, "we had great times together, but..."
Mariellen: —There's only so much time. Life gets in the way, so you become a little pickier about where you spend that resource of time, and the relationships you're going to work to maintain. You do it with the people that have your back, you have their back, and the ones that—at least for me, I would say—I learned how my friends were, and I learned who to let go of.
Joe: It scares me, personally, having friends, and knowing that maybe in twenty years, I might not be friends with those people.
Pam: We're on the very early part of learning that. We have a baby now. Some of our friends don't. We're starting to hang out with people less and less.
Mom: And that'll happen.
Pam: Like you said, life events, like having children.
Joe: It's scary to me, after watching The Big Chill, knowing that maybe those people wouldn't have reconnected if their friend hadn't kill himself. It was a really awful tragedy that brought them back together. And, ya know, not saying that people need a friend to commit suicide in order to strengthen their bonds, but... this group of friends might've needed a tragedy to...
Dad: To pull them back together, yeah.
Joe: I also thought it was interesting that... the moment that the characters were in, in the movie, that kind of "stasis" between college and starting a family, that you might've related to at the time, it's interesting that now, your son—me being the representative of the endpoint of that time in your life... Like, that stasis was over for you when you had a son, and now I am interviewing you about that time.
Mariellen: And now you're in that time.
Joe: Exactly. Me and Pam were kind of talking about that, how we are not our "best selves" right now.
Pam: Jesus. Willow, don't read this in ten years!
[laughter]
Joe: But we're just putting in our time now. And then our children will grow older—
Dad: You're at the hard part! It's not that it's not your best time. It's just... different. It's a challenge.
Joe: I think our "best selves" are down the road. And I think that, by the end of the movie, those characters also felt that way. Like, "we're going to get through this."
Pam: They were more accepting of that fact.
Joe: And so at the same time... there were a lot of details of the movie that I could not relate to.
[laughter]
Joe: I guess the whole Glenn Close and Kevin Kline thing, allowing Kevin Kline to... impregnate the friend?
Mariellen: I think that alleviated her guilt, having cheated on [her husband].
Mom: She cheated on him with the guy that passed.
Dad: You see, in the '60s...
[laughter]
Dad: They were in college in the '60s—we were a little later than that—
Mom: Much later.
Dad: But in the '60s, sex was a lot freer. Uncle Pat, and that generation—
Mom: [to Pam] Your dad's friends.
Pam: Apparently?!
Dad: And now, we didn't experience that.
Joe: I would hope that if you did, you wouldn't tell those stories in front of me, on recorded audio.
[laughter]
Dad: No, it was not, at all.
Mom: Well, we had one friend who might've...
Mariellen: Oh god.
Joe: ...is it someone I know?
Mariellen: Let's not go there.
Joe: [laughter] Yes, let's please not go there.
Dad: Sex... it's evolved. Nowadays, you have to be more careful. Back then, it was a little more carefree.
Joe: I mean, I don't think it was a matter of "consent" in the movie. Everyone in the situation consented to it. It was just, ya know, the fact that these eight people spent the whole weekend together... and they both showed up in their long john pajamas, and started having intercourse. Something I cannot relate to.
Mom: It was weird.
Dad: Yeah, but it fit the plot. They were good friends, and they would do anything for each other. Literally, anything.
Mariellen: ...that's when you find out who your friends are.
[laughter]
Joe: The ending kind of reminded me of The Breakfast Club, where like, everyone's hooking up... except the nerd! Jeff Goldblum.
Dad: Right! [laughter]
Joe: Are you aware of what the title means? Has it been explained to you what the director said? Or do you have your own interpretation?
Dad: My own interpretation always was that "the big chill" means, like, "chill out," like don't worry about things. That they learned that weekend to relax.
Mom: I always thought it was the death of the friend was the "chill."
Joe: According to the... producer, I guess? "The big chill" was the term for the "cooling process that takes place for every generation," when they move on from the idealistic younger days of, "we're going to change the world," to older, "I only have enough resources to care about myself." Which, to me... that's such a Boomer thing to say.
Dad: Well... at a certain age, when you're in college, you think you're going to change the world. Right?
Joe: True.
Dad: And it reaches a point when... you don't. There's not much you can do. You do what you can, you take care of yourself, you take care of your family, and that's all you can do, man.
Joe: You get numb to what you could possible affect in the world. Which sucks!
Dad: It does!
Joe: I don't like it. I don't like thinking about it. I didn't like learning that that was the reason why it was called "The Big Chill." It made me depressed.
Dad: It sucks, but it is the truth.
Joe: Do you guys feel like you have no effect on the world right now?
Dad: Yes. Absolutely. Especially the state of the world now. You're getting so excited about things, like, "We gotta do this!" and "We can't let this happen!" And it's... like you said [earlier], your vote for Elizabeth Warren—yes, free college tuition for everyone is a good thing. But is it possible? From my vantage point, I think, there's no way that's ever going to happen. Just based on the way that things happen. The way that politics work. The way... you say, okay, they want to try to make the billionaires pay for it. It's never going to happen!
Mom: ...politics...?
Joe: No, I like this [conversation].
Dad: It's not going to happen.
Mom: Alright!
Joe: We talked about it earlier, but... I don't want to ever go through a "big chill." I don't want to ever stop being idealistic.
Dad: That's a good goal.
Pam: But don't you think that's a normal psychological thing that everyone goes through though? Do you think... I mean, you can try to not, but it might be something that's out of your control.
Joe: That's a good question. It might be inevitable. Maybe! As the world beats me down...
Mariellen: There are people out there who are still trying to effect change—
Dad: Bernie Sanders! How old is he?
Mariellen: Not everybody has the stamina to keep going.
Joe: I'm lucky in this regard, in that I also get paid to try to affect the world in positive ways. Not that I ever feel... I rarely feel successful with it. But, at least I have the opportunity to try. Or, an excuse to tell me myself that I'm avoid the "big chill," by going into "heated" areas.
Dad: But then also, you take pleasure, or satisfaction, out of other things. Like, my family. I feel like a rich man. I know I'm rich, because I know what I have.
Joe: That we're in a position to spend excess money on a vacation house for a week, and drink beers, and talk about a movie we like—
Mariellen: And not only that, but just that you have such a solid family. And I think that you, being in the position you're in, realize that that's not something that everybody has.
Joe: Truth.
Mariellen: We're very lucky to have that opportunity. I count my blessings all the time.
Dad: Sure, we don't have a lot of things. We don't have a shore house. We don't have a fancy car. But we have a lot more—
Mariellen: We have the things that matter.
Dad: And that's what's really important. And those guys in the movie, a lot of them were—
Joe: That was another interesting thing, actually! A lot of them were financially successful. And they were slow to come to the realization that you're saying now, that there should be more than that. That some of them found success financially, or career-wise, and they're coming to this house, and they feel unfulfilled. They're coming to the realization, in hanging out with their old friends, ya know, "Oh my god, I am unfulfilled currently."
Dad: Right.
Joe: I know you guys had a The Big Chill poster, and you put your faces on the characters. Was that a—I know it was a funny thing, which I now appreciate, having watched the movie—but, when you made that collage, was it a one-to-one comparison? Did the faces that went on characters, were they the equivalent to each friend?
Mom: I don't think so. It was only by appearance. Who looked like what.
Joe: So Rick was Jeff Goldblum.
[laughter]
Dad: [pointing to Mom] She was Glenn Close, and I was Kevin Kline.
Joe: In appearance only? [laughter]
Dad: But we had the most stable... and that was it.
Mom: I can't think of who everyone else was
Dad: But really... William Hurt, Nick, he was dealing with drugs and all that.
Mom: Who was that, Harry?
Dad: Sure, in appearance. But he always reminded me of [off-the-record name], because I knew that [he] was still doing drugs. He was... he didn't have his act together.
Joe: And you're thinking this now, or you were thinking of this when you watched the movie?
Dad: No, back then even, I realized at that point.
Mom: We just did that for the Mountains.
Joe: I was just curious.
Mom: It was just like, whoever had blonde hair, whatever. You know what I mean?
Dad: It just fit that there were eight of them and eight of us.
Joe: So when the eight of you hung out—say, when the kids went to bed—was there a similar dynamic? Like, the eight of you are all in a house together for the weekend. I'm not asking if similar plotlines played out, I'm asking, like, did you come to certain realizations about your own selves and the character of your friends? Being so close.
Dad: No, not really. It didn't fit.
Mom: Everyone was more just having fun. It wasn't that serious.
Joe: And I guess, when we started going to the Poconos, you were older than the characters in the movie. Was there times when you were thirty, hanging out with your friends, like, "We're getting older!" Did you feel that when you thirty? Like, "This might change. We're going to be in different places in ten years."
Dad: No.
Mom: Nope, not at all.
Dad: It didn't really connect at that point.
Joe: Well, you already had a kid at that point, when you were thirty.
Dad: We had all of our kids when we turned thirty.
Joe: [laughter] Okay, so when you were twenty?
Mom: No, we never thought of that.
Joe: So that's a thing with my generation I guess.
Mom: It must be.
Joe: Premature nostalgia?
Dad: I'll tell you—and you haven't asked me this question yet, why is this my favorite movie?
Joe: We're circling to it!
Dad: Okay.
Joe: If you got a spiel, go for it. Please.
Dad: No, it was just entertaining. The music—
Mom: The music was a big part of it.
Dad: The music was very entertaining. And that pulled me in. And the storyline—very entertaining. And that's why I watch movies. Some people might analyze things. I like comedies better than other genres. I don't like... even action movies, I'm not a big action movie guy. I don't watch superhero movies. I just like comedies, and entertainment. For me.
Joe: Movies as a form of escapism.
Dad: Escapism, yeah.
Joe: Which is so interesting to me, because I watched the movie and was like... I wasn't escaping. I felt a strong connection to it. It was the opposite of escapism.
Mariellen: It wasn't a light movie.
Joe: There were some light moments, like the "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" sequence, and they're all dancing around.
Pam: What did they advertise that movie as when it came out? As a comedy?
Dad: No, not a comedy...
Mariellen: More like a "friend" movie.
Pam: Like, a "heart-warming" thing?
Joe: I definitely appreciated the direction of the movie. Which is not something I typically appreciate, but I did in this movie. When they had the camera steady, going through everybody sitting at the kitchen table, every hour, different people sitting at the table.
Mom: With the sneakers?
Joe: Yeah. And there was a camera shot where it just panned across the table where all the cigarettes and beers were. You could tell it was a lively scene, that everyone appreciated each other's company, and you could tell that just by the camera movement.
Dad: I agree. I just think it was a great movie, beginning to end.
Joe: I agree with you. Roger Ebert did not agree. He said that there was "no payoff, it didn't lead anywhere." Which I didn't agree with. I thought the whole point was that these people were connected with each other—
Mariellen: Maybe Roger Ebert didn't have a lot of old friends!
[laughter]
Mariellen: It didn't identify with him.
Dad: He's right, in a way, in that it didn't have a "climax."
Joe: Doesn't that make it more true to life though, that there was no climax? When we leave this shore house, or maybe even after we leave this deck right now after talking about this movie, there's not going to be a climactic scene where people are yelling at each other?
Dad: Life goes on! But you gotta listen to music. You have to have fun. You have to try to make it light. Ya know? ...Another thing.
Joe: Please.
Dad: I was hearing about this movie, and I wanted to see it, and that's why I don't think we saw it in the movie theater.
Mom: I swore we did.
Dad: I swear we saw it on the VCR.
Mom: No, that wouldn't be right.
Dad: I remember even, there was a comic strip, it was called Cathy—
Joe and Pam: [at the same time] ACK!
Dad: But she was talking about The Big Chill. It was like, I gotta see this movie.
Joe: I don't know that there's going to be another movie I talk about with friends or family where the person whom I'm talking with was convinced to see it by Cathy...
[laughter]
Dad: You're probably right. But I like to think I'm unique, and I have a different sense of looking at things. I'm not usually into the "popular" things. I'd never heard "Old Town Road" until you played it. And we were talking about all the other number one songs... I don't listen to number one songs. I listen to different songs. I've always tried to be different.
Joe: The Big Chill is the alternative movie for the hip Boomer crowd?
Dad: Yeah!
Pam: Was it nominated for Best Picture though?
Joe: It was.
Mom: Did it win for anything? I can't remember.
Joe: Hold up, I wrote down all the nominations. It didn't win for anything.
Dad: Nothing?
Joe: Nope. [reading] It was nominated for Best Picture, and it lost to Terms of Endearment. It was nominated for Best Supporting Actress—Glenn Close—but lost to Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously...? And it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but lost to Tender Mercies.
Dad: Tender Mercies?!
Joe: I have never seen any of those other movies.
Pam: And Glenn Close has still never won an Oscar.
Joe: Good! I didn't think she was that great in The Big Chill. I mean, I thought she was... fine. But there were definitely better actors and actresses.
Dad: I thought so too.
Joe: I thought Nick did a good job—
Dad: Yup, William Hurt.
Joe: I thought the chick that hooked up with Tom—mustached Tom—
Dad: Berenger.
Joe: I thought she did good.
Pam: Jeff Goldblum was playing Jeff Goldblum.
Joe: Right, he did his shtick.
Dad: But, that was the first time he did that shtick. It really was. And then Tom Berenger went on to play in Platoon.
[Editor's note: I'm cutting this unnecessarily Platoon conversation.]
Joe: We'll end with this: Do you feel like nostalgia can be toxic? Do you feel like it's ever a bad thing to remember the old days? To quote Tony Soprano: "'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation."
Dad: No.
Mom: I would say no.
Pam: I think you can get stuck in it, and not be able to move past it.
Joe: I feel like a lot of what I write about is about the old days. I always get worried, that I might get stuck.
Pam: I think I told you that when we first started dating, that you're the most nostalgic 21-year-old I ever met. Like, driving down the shore, "We gotta listen to this song when we drive over the bridge, because it's what I do every time." I was like, "okay..."
Mom: Did you play Bruce when you went over the bridge this time?
Joe: Always. For the past twelve years.
Pam: The first time we drove down the shore, and did that, I thought that was a little weird.
[laughter]
Joe: So Pam, do you think nostalgia is toxic? Because that's what we're doing right now.
Pam: I just said, I think it can be, but a healthy level of it can be fine.
Joe: The characters in The Big Chill were fighting about it a lot, about what happened in the old days.
Pam: But I think that's because they were all brought together under strenuous circumstances. If you're a person who's living in the past, then yes, I think that's toxic.
Dad: That's what William Hurt says, freaking out: "We were friends for a short period of time in our lives!" You can't hold that as "the best time." Things move on. You move on.
Joe: But was he right?
Dad: He was right to point it out, but... no. It's okay to look back and enjoy it, and feel pleasure in the things that you did...
Joe: I guess there's a line you can cross. When you're appreciating the old days versus living in the old days.
Mariellen: Did you see the thing on Facebook? It was about: "Someday, your kids are going to go through your photo albums, and they're going to ask you who these people are. And you're going to answer your kids, 'Those are the people I had the best years of my life with.'"
Mom: I saw that!
Mariellen: I think when you get older, you do look back on your youth as the best time of your life. Because you had fun!
Mom: No worries.
Mariellen: Less responsibility.
Dad: I don't look at it like that. I really don't. Yes, we had great times. But, I had the best time of my life today, with Willow, on the beach. I did!
Mom: Well you can still look back.
Dad: I know, I look back on it, and it was great. I had a great time with [Kevin O'*****]. We used to have fun at Breen's. But was it the "best" times? No, not really.
Mom: But you thought that it was back then—the best times.
Joe: I think it's a healthy way of looking at it. You're still creating good memories.
Dad: Absolutely.
Joe: I have to remind myself of that occasionally.
Dad: We had great times when we used to go up the Mountains when you guys were little. We had a great time this year when we went up the mountains. It was even better, if you ask me!
Mariellen: I think there are a lot of people in the world whose lives maybe don't turn out the way they think they're going to, or the way they planned for—
Mom: And they're looking back and saying "those were the days," yeah.
Joe: That would play into the theory that nostalgia is toxic. If you are too focused on the past, then what does that say about your present?
Mariellen: I also think that, with time, you remember the good more than the bad. Memories get a little whitewashed.
Dad: You only remember the fun things. You don't remember the boring times. So... no. I don't think nostalgia is toxic. But it's not the most important thing.
Joe: It's nice being nostalgic about this movie, looking back?
Dad: Yeah, it was a great movie! If I would've watched it tonight, I would still say, "That was the best movie."
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