There are feature films that make us wonder how the fairies of public funding were able to give birth to them… Longing, by Israeli filmmaker Savi Gabizon, is one of them.
A Canada-Israel co-production, Longing is a remake of the Hebrew-language feature film Ga’agua, directed by Gabizon in 2017. In a North American version in English. Starring Richard Gere as a wealthy New York bachelor and businessman; Suzanne Clément as her ex, a French-speaker who is struggling in Ontario; and Diane Kruger as an enigmatic high school teacher.
After simultaneously learning of the existence and death of his son from his ex, Daniel will join her in Canada for the funeral. The sixty-year-old character will return to late fatherhood (Gere is 74 years old) by discovering the story of his child whom he never knew. And will even see Grandpa! Unfortunately, his quest is more ridiculous than moving.
What’s wrong? The twists and turns are awkward. Daniel encounters characters every moment on his path, each as improbable as the next: his son’s best friend and his girlfriend; the principal of the college where his son studied; a father collected in front of his daughter’s grave in the cemetery. Plus, everyone acts like Allen is still alive!
Filmed in Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo, Longing has the makings of a bad TV movie, although not bad enough to become cult. However, a few scenes, like the fight between Daniel and the father of Allen’s ex-blonde (Alex Ivanovici, caricature), who is “on probation”, reminds him of his wife, remind him of the famous turnip The Room…
Longing’s only interest is to see three well-known performers on screen. With his intense and idiotic look, Richard Gere half-heartedly plays a hero who constantly apologizes. Suzanne Clément seems lost in Rachel’s medicated fog. And Diane Kruger is false in the skin of this professor in a French-speaking college where everyone speaks English.
With its laughable and clumsy dialogues, its senseless script, and its photo direction worthy of a Destination Ontario infomercial, Longing is a film that will be forgotten as quickly as it leaves the poster.