I thought The Big Chill was remarkably good. I saw it when it came out and it confirmed to me that the Summer of Love was over. Kaput.
I don't know if that was the director's intention, but it sure was the message I got from seeing it.
I witnessed a good deal of the hippie movement first hand, in Seattle in 1965-68 and then at NYU during the anti-Vietnam protests. I thought it was all totally brainless at the time, and I've never seen any reason to change my mind.
That was the message I got from the movie. "It's all over, Baby!"
The Big Chill, IMHO, was terrible. It was about an idealistic but bankrupt generation leading to some of the worse excesses: materialism, corruption, drug abuse, etc. But what made me despise the movie was that in spite of the personal flaws these people were still considered "cool." They had their Utopian vision intact from the 60s and though that had quickly passed away in society, they never really left behind the unreal dream that united them, that made them and their counterculture movement a unique moment in American History. The same can be said of Martin Heidegger and his flirtation with Nazism which he never repudiated. He saw something grand and noble within the movement, the spirit of Being rising up within the German people. And he too longed for and revered that moment of German nationalism in the 1930s, in spite of the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by the German people. The point is that Romanticism is still very much alive. Coolness is still "in," especially in weak minded people. The hippie thing is still considered "cool" for the liberal mind set, regardless of age: whether you are 16 or 60. It's about rebellion & liberation and though the Big Chill shows us the tragic failure of a generation to implement their ideals, they still are beautiful losers to a lot of people.