Movie Review: Disgrace

Disgrace – A Story That Leaves You Unsettled, Yet Thoughtful

Warm greetings!

I recently watched the film Disgrace, directed by Steve Jacobs and based on the novel by J.M. Coetzee. It’s one of those films that’s not easy to watch but it makes you think deeply. It leaves a weight in your chest, and somehow, you carry it with you for days.

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, Disgrace follows David Lurie, a university professor in Cape Town, played by John Malkovich. At first, he seems proud, even arrogant. He believes in beauty, poetry, and his own pleasures. But when he crosses the line with one of his students, his world starts to fall apart. He loses his job, his reputation, and his place in the world he once controlled.

I didn’t like David at the beginning. He seemed selfish, cold, and too proud to admit he was wrong. But the film does something interesting it doesn’t try to make us forgive him, but it lets us see him slowly change. After his disgrace, he moves to the countryside to stay with his daughter Lucy. Life there is very different quiet, rural, and tense with unspoken violence and history.

And then something terrible happens.

One day, David and Lucy are attacked. What follows is not just about trauma, but about how people deal with pain, guilt, and power in very different ways. Lucy chooses silence and survival. David wants justice and understanding. But the world they live in has changed. Power, in every form racial, gendered, intellectual is shifting. And neither David nor the viewer is fully ready for it.

I was shaken by how quiet the movie is. It doesn’t use dramatic music or big speeches. Instead, it gives us long silences, hard stares, and slow conversations. I found myself holding my breath during many scenes. Not because I expected something to explode but because the silence itself was full of tension.

What stood out most to me was how Disgrace shows the struggle between the personal and the political. It’s not just about one man’s downfall, but about a whole country’s painful, changing identity. David wants to believe in old values art, reason, dignity. But the world around him demands something else humility, listening, and the ability to live with discomfort.

Lucy’s character moved me the most. She doesn’t say much, but her strength is quiet and deep. She refuses to leave, to run, or to explain herself. At first, I couldn’t understand her choices. But slowly, I began to respect them. Her life is no longer about ideals it’s about survival, land, and roots.

I won’t lie this film isn’t comforting. It’s hard. It’s filled with moments that made me feel angry, helpless, or confused. But that’s exactly why I think it’s worth watching. It doesn't offer easy answers. It just shows life as complicated, unfair, and deeply human.

By the end, I saw David not as a hero or villain, but as a man learning to live without control. And maybe that’s what Disgrace is really about. Learning to live with pain, with change, and with the knowledge that we are not always in charge.

If you’re looking for a film that challenges you, that asks you to sit with discomfort and think about the world differently, then I highly recommend Disgrace. Just go in with an open heart and an honest mind.

Thank you for reading.