(Written by Intern, Sean Barry)
Longing, Savi Gabizon’s remake of his own 2017 film, is unable to reach the emotional depths it aims to achieve. Plagued with script errors and bizarre character choices, one wonders what an audience should feel by the end. People disappear for long stretches of time, and mostly everyone seems so unconcerned for the problematic nature of certain elements. Although it is never supposed to be depressingly upsetting, the subject matter necessitates a mood of sorrow that is simply absent. The score appears to be the only aspect adding the proper tone. Without sound, the dismaying nature of the material would be lost, with mostly neutral actors in a brightly lit frame being visible onscreen.
Daniel (Richard Gere) is in a powerful position at his job, but everything changes when he meets with his old college girlfriend, Rachel (Suzanne Clement). She tells him that they had a son named Allen (Tomaso Sanelli) who Daniel never met, and Allen just passed away at the age of nineteen. Daniel dedicates the next few weeks to learning as much as he can about his child: who he liked, what he enjoyed doing, and how he spent his time. One such discovery is that Allen was in love with his teacher, Alice (Diane Kruger), but Daniel soon learns that the love was more than simple teenage yearning. Allen committed several questionable acts during the later part of his life, which causes Daniel to reevaluate his perception of someone he did not know.
Had this been an examination of a father finding out how wonderful his son is only for the ugly truth to shake his preconceived notions, far more interesting results would have come about. Throughout Daniel’s search, he finds out that Allen was dealing drugs, fully obsessing over his teacher, and drugged a teenager to have sex with her. However, Daniel remains passive throughout, never changing his point of view to understand what actually happened. He even goes as far as to call Allen’s assault of an underage girl “youthful foolishness”. Alice acts surprisingly amicable towards Daniel at first, but when he learns that she filed a police report against Allen for stalker behavior, he freaks out at her. Daniel excuses Allen’s behavior, saying that he was just in love, and Alice should have been grateful.
The performances do not help bring any of the emotional core to the forefront. Richard Gere and Diane Kruger have long careers of admirable performances, so seeing them both perform without their usual gravitas brings up questions. Since they and many of the other actors have similar issues, it likely becomes the fault of director Savi Gabizon for not effectively setting them free with their instincts. Or, as previously mentioned, the screenplay does not give them enough to do. Alice is a key figure in the first half, but then disappears right after the halfway mark. After making sparse appearances, Rachel’s husband has a talk with Daniel about how he feels cut out of the action and wants to help. He almost literally says he feels underused in the story and wants to be utilized more, only to be ignored again.
Those who do get time to have dialogue that goes deeper are unfortunately not rewarded. In a scene which would never occur in real life, Daniel is allowed to sit in Alice’s classroom to understand more about Allen. The students then grill Daniel about his past, and Alice completely allows him to spill information about his trauma to high schoolers he does not know. Characters often say exactly what they are thinking without any room for subtlety or deeper motivations. Most bizarrely, Daniel is noted for wanting nothing to do with children for twenty years. Then suddenly, he is absent from his job for weeks on end as he investigates Allen’s life. No one even acknowledges why the protagonist’s motivations are what they are. A more expressive script with more personal struggles for Daniel could have made for an intriguing study into grief and loss. Instead, he spends almost two hours defending his criminalistic offspring who is essentially a stranger.
No one will be Longing to see this movie when it releases in theatres on June 7th.
Completely disagree with negative review. Someone who never has experience loss, depression, or ambiguity in context of various stages of life, might express such a negative perception.
For the rest of us damage souls, we understand and are touched, longingly.
Agree, think it was a great film! Gere is very good in it and it’s a wonderful mix of trivial vulgarity and poetic emotions.
To all that enjoyed this lib bullshit movie I am more than sure that as liberals you’re touched in the head! This is total nonsense and shows how Gere has gotten soft in the head in his older years as a socialist lib. He’s always been a Buddhist but until he went mega, he made great films like American Gigolo, Breathless and Internal affairs with Garcia. He hit the jackpot with the 1990 hit with the giant mouthed no talent Roberts playing a big money john and her as a whore and let’s be real that only Gere could pull that off and make multi millions. Jesus I remember when it was sro at the movies for at least 12 weeks! I just think that he wouldn’t have taken this seriously if he was younger and would have laughed it off. This whole movie was wrong from the git go and because he’s at the twilight of his career it doesn’t matter what he does. Plus this movie is a woke mess and reeks of libtard forgiveness, like stalking, theft and just being a f. ng creep! If that creep of a kid was a spawn of mine I’d beat feet to the airport asafp, especially when I found out that he was raised by an African. It only shows why he showed so much criminal behavior, go figure. I forgot about the rape which also goes with the territory when you’re raised by savages, even Canadian ones! Hahaha. What a mess! Now I’m laughing on the floor about how fing absurd this movie is. God bless Richard Gere for making more money than he needs but having to uphold his liberal views on no punishment for criminals and interracial couples then so be it, but I’m just saying the truth and the kid was a scumbag so can the nonsense about the movie and the only ones I agreed with were the parents of the raped underage girl. F this movie. Go watch an officer and a gentleman..
I didn’t think it was as bad as the reviewer stated, but I observed all the things he mentioned watching the film. It was absurd. I think it was in part the point. I sort of realized Gere’s character was a lost soul, and trying to retrieve something good from a life of selfishness. I’m not sure it was achieved, and in real life that happens too. Was it odd in so many ways? Yeah. Could it have been done better? Yeah. It was watchable for me because I like Gere, but the third act got really strange.
Spot right on…and they could not keep Richard’s hair a constant color.
I found the movie to be almost comedic. From the very start where Daniel learns he had a son, everything only gets more and more depressing to the point I couldn’t take it serious at all.
“You have a son! He is dead though.”
“You can come to the funeral! We, nor anyone else, will be there because we don’t believe you will come though.”
“I’m your son’s friend and I want to talk to you about your son! Please give me money because we deal drugs and he died with our stash in the car. You won’t? Allen wouldn’t have liked you.”
Etc, etc, etc. At the half way mark I was waiting for a doctor to call him to inform him he had cancer just because everything only ever got worse. I actually laughed out loud when Daniel walked up to the location of the accident his son died in and the rain just started pouring when he arrived.
Could it all happen? Maybe. But in this movie it is just too artificial. Nobody ever actually talks to each other. He doesn’t ask his wife about the drugs iirc, they don’t talk about the last few years where Allen wasn’t living at home, he doesn’t talk to the stepdad about what he learned about Allen when stepdad says “I raised him” because well, we know the results. Alice in the first bit might be going “don’t speak ill of the dead” but I don’t see why she would speak so positively either. If Allen stalked her, she would want little to nothing to do with his father.
I also find it weird that Daniel didn’t go talk with the people Allen lived with for three years. He is getting scraps from everyone. Even going so far as just sitting in a classroom because Allen used to sit in that classroom, or spending hours and hours on some random bench Allen used to sit on. But he doesn’t go talk to the people Allen lived with for three years until he has a dramatic reason to do so near the end of the movie. Because if Daniel did, he would have learned his son was an asshole too soon and this would have messed up whatever little throughline the movie had.
One thing you got wrong though, is that Allen did not drug the girl. He drugged the grandmother he shared a room with, so she wouldn’t wake up while he was having sex with the girl. But this is one more of those issues. Allen was just such an asshole that I don’t get why there weren’t more people informing him of the negative aspects. Those would have come up pretty soon I’d imagine.
Just watched
Hoped for more authentic but.
Wedding after death by proxy?
Left me in disbelief.
Lots of odd situations in this film that don’t quite seem realistic. The girlfriend should have informed him when she got pregnant in the event he had a change of heart about children.
This was a girlfriend not a one night stand. To keep him from his son was unfair even if well intentioned.
He was really biased toward a son he never really knew and made lots of excuses for the son’s behavior. He never apologized for those who were adversely affected by the son. He should have done that even though he was an absent parent.
Calling the movie a comedy drama is strange. The only part that may have been funny was the woman in the roof he saw in a dream. More weird than funny.