"...sweet, sharp, melancholy new comedy...The mourning friends are constantly teetering between laughter and tears, which is the mood of this very accomplished, serious comedy...It's a particular achievement for Mr. Kasdan, who made a stunning directorial debut with Body Heat...Mr. Kasdan is one of the finest of Hollywood's new young writers but The Big Chill, like Body Heat, demonstrates that he is a writer who works as much through images as through words...The soundtrack is loaded with 60s music that recalls, without sentimentality, everything the friends have grown away from. The performances represent ensemble playing of an order Hollywood films seldom have time for, with the screenplay providing each character with at least one big scene. If the actors were less consistent and the writing less fine the scheme would be tiresome. In The Big Chill it's part of the fun." -- The New York Times

"The Big Chill is an amusing, splendidly acted but rather shallow look at what's happened to the generation formed by the 1960s. Like a high-gloss version of John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven [1979] with a classy cast, pic should be very well received by upscale viewers in their 30s, as contemporaries of the characters will find plenty to relate to." -- Variety

"One of the nice things about this funny and ferociously smart movie is that it is not only about the '60s...No joke or gesture is forced in these performances. The eight star actors deserve one big Oscar®. There is another invisible presence in The Big Chill: that of filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan...The Big Chill marks another sure step forward for Kasdan. This is a movie that can extend outside the confines of movie genres, with characters whose lives seep outside the screen frame, who persuade the viewer to care about their pasts and futures." -- Time magazine

"Anyone who believes himself to have been a revolutionary or a deeply committed radical during his student-demonstration days in the late sixties is likely to find The Big Chill, which opened the recent New York Film Festival, despicable. And if the advance publicity for the film has led you to expect a serious, 'personal' movie about how the late-sixties campus activists have adjusted to becoming the kind of people they used to insult, you may find it pretty offensive. It's no more than an amiable, slick comedy with some very well-directed repartee and skillful performances. It's over-controlled, it's shallow, it's a series of contrivances. But there are pleasures to be had from this kind of wisecracking contemporary movie that you can't get from anything else." -- The New Yorker

"The Big Chill is a splendid technical exercise. It has all the right moves. It knows all the right words. Its characters have all the right clothes, expressions, fears, lusts and ambitions. But there's no payoff and it doesn't lead anywhere. I thought at first that was a weakness of the movie. There also is the possibility that it's the movie's message." -- Roger Ebert

"Though it's intelligent, quick-witted and slickly produced, there's no escaping the ponderous philosophizing that keeps spoiling the fun...Sadly, Kasdan sets forth these characters with a patronizing patness. Alex, who is never seen, becomes the most interesting by default. He represents the spirit of the '60s, as does the superb soundtrack...that Kasdan uses like an open faucet of nostalgia." -- People magazine

"Entertaining, surface-level look at a group of former college-radical friends who've dropped back into Society. Wonderful acting ensemble, irresistible soundtrack of 60s hits help camouflage weaknesses of script--which bears more than passing resemblance to John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven." -- Leonard Maltin, Movie and Video Guide

AWARDS AND HONORS

The Big Chill was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close), and Best Original Screenplay (Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek).

The original screenplay for The Big Chill was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award.

Lawrence Kasdan was nominated for a DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures" for his work on The Big Chill.

The Big Chill received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture Comedy/Musical and Best Screenplay.

The script for The Big Chill came in second place in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Screenplay.

The National Board of Review named The Big Chill one of the Top Ten Films of 1983.

The Big Chill won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1983.

Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek won the WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen.

Compiled by Andrea Passafiume