Summary
-
Longing
tells the story of a man learning about his son after his death in this bizarre drama. - Richard Gere delivers an exceptional performance, going all-in on a complicated character who becomes increasingly unhinged.
- The film approaches sensitive and even absurd topics with a weird seriousness and normality, leaving viewers unsure whether to laugh, cringe, or be moved.
Longing is Savi Gabizon’s English-language remake of his own Israeli film from 2017, which may explain some of the inherent oddness of the movie. Was something lost in translation? Not really; the original film (which is streaming on Tubi) is somewhat of an oddity, as well, though it was a lot less subtle and more directly comical. Perhaps we in America are just used to being told which emotions to feel all the time, and embrace our own manipulation. Things are very different in Longing, a serious drama about dead children that reaches levels of absurdity and awkwardness where you aren’t sure if you should laugh or cringe in discomfort.
The film follows a quiet and aloof businessman in the later years of his life, Daniel Bloch. He’s the kind of person with the aura of a Palm Pilot, eternally busy but rich enough to enact that business from the back seat. A woman from Daniel’s past (Suzanne Clément) sets an urgent lunch date with him, where she informs him of the son he never knew they had. She carried his child 18 years ago and decided to continue the pregnancy after they separated emotionally and geographically. She begins to weep at the table of their posh restaurant and runs to the bathroom. Daniel calls his lawyer in preparation; he doesn’t want to get scammed out of any money here.
When his ex-lover returns, she immediately follows this news with the even more shocking announcement that Daniel’s son has recently died in a car accident. He’s invited to the funeral. It’s the kind of existential shock that would jolt most traditional Hollywood Scrooges out of their selfish, lonely habits, prompting them to learn at a late age how to live, laugh, and love again. In fact, it sounds like the set-up for a Richard Gere romantic drama (Nights in Rodanthe, Autumn in New York, etc.). That’s not quite what happens in Longing, though it does star Richard Gere.
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A Man Learns About the Son He Never Knew in Longing
3/5
In Longing, Daniel Bloch (Richard Gere) is shocked to discover a startling secret from his past and becomes immediately consumed by the tragedy. With each new encounter, Daniel uncovers a deeper layer of himself and the life he could have had.
Release Date June 7, 2024
Director Savi Gabizon
Writers Savi Gabizon
Distributor(s) Lionsgate
Pros
- Richard Gere is incredible in a surprising performance.
- An unpredictable character study that never tells you how to feel as it explores identity and fatherhood.
Cons
- A deeply awkward and bizarre third act that is filmed like a Lifetime or Hallmark movie but is absolutely ridiculous.
Expand
After a lonely night in his swanky New York apartment, Daniel hits the road and heads to the very small town where his son and ex (who has remarried and is very ill) have lived most of their lives. He has one or two nights booked at the local hotel, planning to catch up with the woman from his past, attend the funeral, and head home. But as small details about his son’s life emerge, Daniel finds himself increasingly interested in learning about who the boy was.
Someone claiming to be his son’s best friend visits him at the hotel late at night, and fills in some details about the boy’s life. He also asks for thousands of dollars, because his large stash of marijuana was in the 17-year-old’s car when it went over the bridge. The boy had apparently resorted to drug dealing after being expelled from high school.
And so Daniel heads to the local school to learn about the expulsion, the reason for which is painted in big, bold colors across the outside walls of the school — a very vulgar note about one of the school’s teachers. Daniel looks at it as a French love poem, though, and is angered at the idea of his son being expelled from school.
He learns about the subject of the graffiti poetry, a teacher (played by Diane Kruger) who his son was obsessively in love with. Daniel meets her and tries to get to know her, approaching her as he does everything in the town — small ghostly clues as to who his child was. Longing is a mystery in this sense, in which the detective is a father and the case to solve is his son’s identity.
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Richard Gere Goes All-In with a Very Odd but Compelling Performance
Longing (2024) Official Trailer – Lionsgate
Richard Gere is exceptional here
, even if he is slotted into the same kind of vaguely wealthy older man who is cut off from his emotions and those of others. He played this with varying degrees of menace and ennui in the phenomenal
Arbitrage
, Oren Moverman’s befuddling
The Dinner
, and the disappointing
The Benefactor
. He also deconstructed the character type from the opposite end of the economic spectrum in
Gere’s best performance of this century, Time Out of Mind
, which was also written and directed by the great Oren Moverman.
Moverman assisted his fellow Israeli filmmaker Savi Gabizon here in Longing, helping to translate the original film for a North American and English-language context. The combination of Gere and Moverman always has a lightning-in-a-bottle component, and they work with Gabizon to create a truly compelling character in Daniel Bloch. He’s a man who has suddenly sprung into existence after years of ritualistic capitalism, and is obsessively clinging on to the one thing that has seemingly given him a reason to live, even if that one thing is dead.
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It’s fascinating to watch Daniel construct an identity for his dead son, wholly post hoc, and also to see that conception of a person being tested and even negated by people who had very different experiences with the boy when he was alive. Even though Daniel was never a father, he becomes disturbingly protective of the child he never knew when his perception of him is threatened by some pretty ugly truths. Gere becomes surprisingly unhinged in several scenes here, giving an unflattering and sometimes bizarre performance that’s utterly vulnerable and unafraid of embarrassment. He’s the best part of the film, which is otherwise weirdly placid.
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A Bizarre and Ridiculous Plot Played Straight
Lionsgate
The lengths that Daniel and Longing goes to will undoubtedly be uncomfortable for most viewers, or even just outright ridiculed. After learning about another dead child in town, this time to suicide, Daniel devises the idea of an arranged wedding between the two dead kids. He and the film approach this funereal wedding with such unabashed seriousness that Daniel may come across as legitimately insane, having an unfortunate and sudden mental breakdown, but Longing doesn’t stage things this way. You’re not sure whether to laugh at the situation, find it completely stupid, or be weirdly moved by it all.
There’s something impressive about that, and the fact that someone with Gere’s Hollywood stature goes so all-in with Longing is even more impressive. Does that make the film any less weird or embarrassing? Not really. It’s a very bizarre watch, all the way through the end, which feels like a sappy Hallmark movie despite the subject matter being unbelievably bonkers and grim. You might not know what to think about Longing, but you’ll certainly be thinking about it long after it’s gone.
From Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment, Longing is in theaters June 7, 2024.
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