The Big Chill

I'd skip it. The acting's atrocious.

I would skip it. Very dated, very Boomer.

It's like a decent sitcom with better music. For me it was more about aging and friendship than grieving. If you're in the mood for something light, you might enjoy it. Hurt and Berenger are hot here!

Terms of Endearment or Steel Magnolias are actually better if you want an 80s movie about grief.

There is very little actual grieving in The Big Chill besides G's crying in the shower.

R1, let me guess M. The movie would've been better if it was after G's funeral, right?

R4, I've never seen Terms of Endearment, but I've seen Steel Magnolias. Now THAT movie had me bawling. Given my emotions have been out of whack it's best if I avoid that. Beaches is another movie that kills me too.

Time machine to the 80’s. Watch it you are in the mood for that. I don’t know if it is particularly emotionally triggering or relieving. Kind of a boring relationship movie.

Funnily enough, Up ( animated) is a really good movie that gets me all choked up. Terms of Endearment is very good and very emotional

Watch a Bollywood film for helping with grief. Di Chaata Hai is good. Nice eye candy too.

That scene in Terms where the daughter says goodbye to her boys is so powerful. The youngest boy crying makes you feel his pain and grief.

Fun fact. One of Kevin Costner's first roles. He plays the dead guy. His speaking parts were cut.

R6, Everyone I've known who's watched Up has said they've cried through it.

A little story about why Beaches gets me. My grandpa loves Wind Beneath My Wings and it kind of became my grandparents song. Right before my grandpa died he had been in the hospital with a brain bleed. He had been in and out the whole time. My grandma never left his side. At one point he woke up and said to my grandma, "Did you ever know that you're my hero?" That was the last thing he said to her and died a few days later. So, when that song plays when Barbara Hershey's character dies, I lose it.

Agree about Terms. I love Shirley and happy she won but Winger's scene in the hospital room telling her sons she is going to die is the best acting of the entire film. Even almost 40 years later, that scene feels almost voyeuristic.

What Dreams May Come

I can't imagine that The Big Chill would have aged well.

Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979) made 4 years earlier is far superior and still plays really well.

OP: is this movie on that list? You might suggest the counselor consider it.

Truly Madly Deeply is great. It’s about letting go of an all-encompassing grief and starting to live again. Superbly acted by Alan Rickman and the woman who plays his partner.

Yes, totally agree with R15. Juliet Stephenson and Rickman are fantastic in it. Best of all for OP's purposes, it's hopeful and affirming at the end.

The Big Chill isn't so much about grieving a person as it's about grieving lost youth and pining for The Good Old Days.

OT: Juliet Stevenson is also great in the 3 part THE POLITICIAN’S WIFE.

It’s divided into episodes on YouTube:

I saw it way back when, and can hardly remember anything about it.

I like the Big Chill a lot. It certainly has some pointed ideas about friendship and aging, as well as college activist idealism giving way to the realities of life. But I would not recommend as a movie about grieving.

"For me it was more about aging and friendship than grieving"

R3 summed it up. For Xer's like myself, it mostly displays our parents generation at their most obnoxious. Self-centered, self-absorbed, perhaps one-time-activists but now obsessed with dollars and greed... Then they hilariously pine for the good ol' days of being broke and having a cause while they bask in the beauty of their vacation home and check the Dow Jones. I jest, but that is a recurring theme to this movie. While Kevin Costner's dead character is mentioned and some characters feign grief, they are mostly interested in sleeping with each other, getting drunk and high and generally moaning about all of their amassed fortunes and stellar careers. The movie was old by the time I first saw it but it represented a selfish streak that a percentage (certainly not ALL) of Boomers sometimes display and I felt like I was watching my parent's friends on vacation. I think the film was primarily known for its soundtrack and not much else.

papi chulo

God, I hated that soundtrack! My college roommates freshman year had discovered it and -- since they weren't really musical, they just played and re-played it all the time, and I swear I was thisclose to strangling them both if I had to hear "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" one more time.

Split with them for sophomore year and never looked back.

I loved the soundtrack and had it, or rather them (they were two albums, maybe the first time they did the "more music from" thing?), but I can totally see being driven crazy by a roommate constantly playing it. A character in the movie even says at one point, "Do you have any music from *this* century?"

Ya want grieving? I'll give you grieving...

The Big Chill is the originator of the kitchen dance to 60s soul-pop trope in movies!

The soundtrack really did make this movie. Big Chill was one of the first to do an oldies heavy soundtrack. Previously, movies might have one or two oldies, but this movie had more than a dozen.

Similarly, as noted, the soundtrack album sold a gazillion copies because the soundtrack was so good. And yes, it even had a second soundtrack album released with even more oldies on it. It helped prove there was an audience for oldies and helped pave the way for many oldies radio stations to launch soon after when the FCC approved more local radio stations.

"Previously, movies might have one or two oldies, but this movie had more than a dozen."

*

Tell that to American Graffiti

The most annoying thing about it was the soundtrack. People acted like they’d never heard ‘60s songs before.

I did think it was weird that nearly all the songs were Motown, rather than hippie stuff. These were supposed to be '60s radicals, but their anthem was Ain't Too Proud to Beg?

OP, try "The Prince of Tides." I think I even read the book (Pat Conroy). You could probably find an audio book.

Were the sixties radicals? Wouldn't they have been in college in the 70s?

Terms of Endearment is a cliche-fest. Steel Magnolias is a camp fest. Big Chill is filled with cartoon characters and weak acting—-without the soundtrack. One would have gone to see it. Get a new therapist because they are throwing junk at you.

Secaucus Seven Is a much better film sdespite having been made on zero budget. Unlike Big Chill it real is about relationships and what happens to people after college.