Everyone grieves in their own way. Longing, Savi Gabizon’s English-language remake of his own 2017 Israeli film, is an unintentional test of our tolerance for that adage. It starts on a unique note of tragedy, then follows a grieving character into conduct beyond bad taste. Not only does this material obliterate our willingness to suspend our disbelief, it also depends on character actions that have no semblance of ordinary human behavior – at least not in Canada, where it takes place. Scenes end in bizarre ways, introducing eccentricities and subplots that sometimes fail to resolve. Perhaps Gabizon’s original film worked better in his native country, a place where he has a better grasp of culture and tradition. His attempt to rework the material feels backward, even bizarre, to the point where fascination over the unfolding disaster is the only thing that makes the film compelling.
We do not spend a lot of time with Daniel (Richard Gere) before he gets some terrible news. He is a lonely, wealthy bachelor in New York City who seemingly has no life beyond work. One day he has coffee with an ex-girlfriend Rachel (Suzanne Clément), and she drops a bombshell: they had a son about 20 years ago, and that son recently died in a car crash. After his initial disbelief, Daniel travels to Hamilton, Ontario, to get some sense of Allen, his departed child who we see only in flashback. These early scenes are somewhat affecting because Gere underplays Daniel, using shyness and deference to obscure his simultaneous status as father and stranger. But then as a clearer picture of Allen comes into view, Daniel becomes defensive and wistful. He wants his sense of Allen to have some meaning, and so he has an unusual idea: a posthumous “marriage” ceremony between the boy and a young woman who recently died by suicide, and who happens to be buried a few plots over from Allen at the cemetery.
Now the idea of a posthumous wedding is not all that unusual. Chinese ghost marriages have been around for millennia, and a simple Wikipedia search shows similar practices in other countries throughout the world. But Longing treats the idea as if Daniel comes up with it on his own, and more importantly, he is pushy – even rude – about getting others to follow his plan. There are objections from Rachel and the dead girl’s parents, and yet these are perfunctory because Gabizon clearly believes Daniel’s tapped into something moving, not offensive. Maybe this could have worked if Daniel was given a little bit more backstory, or even had a scene in which he’s seen reading about how other parents can grieve. Gere is a great actor, capable of complex emotion, but he cannot work miracles. Scenes where he convinces reluctant adults, all of whom know better, to go along with his ideas are never convincing because there is no good reason for them to do so, except that the plot requires it.
Before the final scene of the “wedding reception,” Longing includes several subplots that also have no satisfying resolution. We meet Allen’s friend and former classmate, who supplies Daniel with some anecdotes and then attempts to extort Daniel in an effort repay his debt to a drug dealer (after this scene, this subplot never gets addressed again). Daniel later develops a gentle friendship with Alice (Diane Kruger), Allen’s former French teacher. Allen was obsessed with her, to the point where he defaced the wall of his high school with obscene graffiti (in French, of course). Daniel insists the graffiti is “poetry,” not smut, then he pursues Alice socially to see … well, whether she was worth it. Kruger and Gere do not have much chemistry, and so what drives their scenes together is Alice being deferential rather than decent.
This quasi-romantic subplot culminates in what might be the film’s most bizarre scene: Daniel sits in during one of Alice’s lessons – at Allen’s old desk, naturally – and when her other students have questions about Allen, Daniel unloads on them about his own abusive father. This is wildly inappropriate, a basic breakdown of the social contract on multiple fronts, and yet Alice makes no attempt to stop Daniel or kick him out of her classroom. All this strange conduct continues, including a nasty scene where Daniel accuses Alice of essentially being the reason behind the fatal crash. If the film wants “everyone grieves differently” to be its subtext, then Longing is a failure. It makes little attempt to critique Daniel’s absurd conduct, even when other characters rebuff him, because it opts for a vibe that suggests Gabizon is always on the side of his hero. Some scenes are also mildly comic, an attempt at levity that feels like a kind of gaslighting.
Longing ultimately becomes a test of patience – not just for the audience, but for all the people Daniel offends on his unique journey into fatherhood. If the posthumous funeral was not enough, there is also the matter of Allen’s teenage ex-girlfriend. She is pregnant, and Daniel insists that she keep the baby – to the chagrin of the girl’s parents – all while keeping this poor girl out of the dead boy’s nuptials (which, let’s not forget, are with a girl Allen never met). It is around this point that Longing leads to some basic questions. Who is this film’s target audience? Has it made the worst anti-abortion argument in the history of cinema and the abortion debate generally? Did anyone on either side of the camera stop to think this could be veering into bad taste? There are no answers, of course, except one realization that unlocks the whole shoddy enterprise.
We know what happens in Longing is wrong, and yet it insists we should find it moving, anyway.
Photo courtesy of Lionsgate
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