MARINA HEUNG
559
The sense of disillusionment, confusion, and compromise felt by
all the characters represents their difficulties in pursuing success and
fulfillment within a context in which the old rules no longer apply.
No wonder, then, that they retreat into cynicism and self-conscious
irony. As one character remarks over a Chinese take-out dinner,
"Even fortune cookies are getting cynical." Yet the same cookies
offer a wry hint of what turns out to be the saving grace in the film.
One fortune intones, "Friendship is the bread of life, but money is
the honey," suggesting that friendship, with its ability to sustain
professional commitment and to survive through time and separation, may allow the characters to overcome their impasse. In the
same way that romance and professional commitment are portrayed
in tandem in Continental Divide, in The Big Chill, friendship intersects with work. For example, Michael has just done a cover story
for People magazine on Sam, the actor. Or, while jogging together,
Harold advises Nick to buy stock in his company, as it will soon be
taken over by a conglomerate: his friendly hope is that Nick's profits
will then allow him to go into "another line of work." However, the
best example showing how work comes to the aid of friendship is
during the comic set-piece pitting the group against the local cop
who has followed Nick back to the house. Obviously, this scene
reenacts the classic confrontational scenario of the '60s, but now it is
played with a twist. When the cop insinuates that Nick is "one of
them Yankee drug-dealers that we sometimes get passing through
here on their way to Florida," only Nick responds with the reflexive
hostility left over from the past. The others, without a hitch, immediately step into their professional personas: Meg comes forward as
Nick's attorney, and Harold adopts the conciliatory manner of a
local property owner. In the hilarious climax of this incident, Sam
agrees to perform his patented "J.T. Lancer" stunt for the cop.
When he falls during his flying leap into a sportscar, who should
come to the rescue but Sarah, the physician.
By proposing friendship as an adjunct to work, Kasdan seems to
be in retreat from the question that he first posed in Continental
Divide, which is how intimate relationships can survive the
demands of work. Actually, The Big Chill goes on to make an even
more radical statement by portraying friendship as the basis of sexual relationships. Thus, although the film ends with the consummation of several liaisons, each such pairing affirms the primacy of
friendship over passion. When Sam and Karen make love in the
