The Big Chill is a 1983 film that tells the story of several University of Michigan college friends who reunite after many years for the funeral of one of their friends who has committed suicide. It stars Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, and Don Galloway.
The movie was written by Barbara Benedek and Lawrence Kasdan, and was directed by Kasdan. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Glenn Close), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
The movie was filmed in historic Beaufort, South Carolina, and was shot at the same antebellum home used as a location for The Great Santini, starring Robert Duvall and Blythe Danner.
A seminal Thirty-Something movie in which a group of old college friends who are now all grown up and hardened by the big wide world come together for the funeral of Alex, a barely glimpsed corpse (which is played by Kevin Costner as noted in the Special Features section of the DVD), who was at one time the brightest and the best of them, and yet who never managed to achieve half as much as any of the others. The friends use the occasion to reacquaint themselves with each other and to speculate as to what happened to their idealism which had been abundant when they were younger. Written by Mark Thompson
