Taking Off

This is one of the most curiously delightful films I have ever seen. From the first few minutes until it's very end, 'Taking Off' offers an uniquely gentle vision of the confused 70s generation, it's hopes and wishes, and their problematic relationships with their respective, old-fashioned, hypocritical parents. Larry and Lynn Tyne are the heads of a typical american family, with their respective neurosis and worries targeted to their daughter Jeannie, lovely Linnea Hancock, and her taking drugs and the company that surrounds her. As she 'takes off' from home, their parents begin to seek for her, and as the seek continues, their degree of closeness is increased, while them both become absolutely degenerate and carefree - as they judge the new generation to be.

Forman presents a simple story that smoothly develops itself into a thoughtful character study about the gap of generations, presented in a fashion never seen before, and most enjoyable, scoring once again by bringing his innovative directing style from Europe to America for the first time, and with a modest budget and unknown stars, with the honorable exception of Buck Henry, Ike and Tina Turner and a very, very young Carly Simon( Singing A Remarkable Ballad, That Goes Like This - Long Term Physical Effects Are Not Yet Known... So, I'll Just Take Another Drag, And Just Get Stoned!(...) Short Term Physical Effects Are So Groovey!)

You may glimpse a young Jessica Harper during my favorite sequence, the audition one. The characters you'll find during this are simply... unforgettable. :)

So, just enjoy this underrated gem, 'with a smile on your face and a heart to embrace', a faithful portrait of youth, hypocrisy, and seemingly contained parents.

Czech director Milos Forman made his American debut with this sweetly-zonked look at the generation gap, circa 1971. Straight, tightly-wound suburban married couple just outside New York City panic when their teenage daughter runs away...but eventually they tire of looking for her ("She's probably out there having fun," the kid's father says, "so why shouldn't we have some fun, goddammit!"). Scenes of the grown-ups letting loose with marijuana experimentation and strip poker are intercut with teenagers auditioning for a musical, and this is where Forman's true talent comes to the fore (he's mad about faces, and passionate about eccentrics and talent). The well-chosen cast (including Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, Audra Lindley, Paul Benedict, Georgia Engel and Allen Garfield, with music performances from Ike and Tina Turner, Kathy Bates and Carly Simon) is uniformly excellent, though the thin screenplay (penned by Forman with John Guare, Jean-Claude Carrière and John Klein) doesn't give the actors much to work with--they're all flying high on the exuberance of collaboration. Forman's vision is predictably cockeyed, though his pacing is slow and his staging is sometimes puzzling. For instance, is he holding the singers at the audition in esteem with his camera or using them satirically? The blank faces of the judges are probably meant to get a laugh, but their dumbfounded reactions shouldn't dictate what we're experiencing watching them for ourselves. The movie does take off on occasion, but it isn't from energy (Forman doesn't display a temperament, he's of the low-keyed school of filmmaking); the sheer intrinsic delight of showcased talent gives the picture its charge, ultimately making it a unique, quirky bird all its own. **1/2 from ****

I first saw this in 1989. It was old then, but nearly 20 years later its just as fresh and witty. Superb sound editing, great comic set pieces (the how to smoke a joint scene or the black salute), poignant (finding the smokes in the Jeannie's room with "Even the white horses" playing), the music performances (Ode to a Screw) and such acute observation of American Society. Nothing is missed: the comic potential of the fact that there is a "Society for the Parents of Lost Children(SPLC)", the realization that it is the parents who are lost; the lucrative potential of the counter culture and the "establishment's" realization of this (best seen in the hilarious speech by Jeanies boyfriend toward the end). Much of the comedy is drawn from the characters' little crises in their lives and their attempts to solve them, but it is always a warm and affectionate comedy. Forman likes these people, he likes America, he's willing them on, every slightly misguided step of the way.

Milos Forman's first American release is part social satire, part farcical look at two morose, middle-class parents (Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, both outstanding)

who begin to enjoy life only after their teenage daughter (sad-eyed Linnea

Heacock) runs away. At once funny and touching, Forman and veteran Bunuel

collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere ("Belle du Jour," "Diary of a Chambermaid") concoct a simple story of unexpected depth, a wry comedy that unfolds

gradually, gently lampooning marriage and family life while painting a sensitive portrait of the confused, disenfranchised youth scene of the 1960s. Forman

regular Vincent Schiavelli makes his debut here as a bell-bottomed marijuana

"expert," who carefully instructs a banquet hall full of clueless parents in the fine art of getting high. A young Kathy Bates and a spirited Carly Simon appear

briefly singing at a theatrical audition, while Georgia Engel and Audra Lindley turn in subtle, nuanced performances several years before their television

debuts on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Three's Company," respectively.

A beautifully observed, underrated gem.

This is the first Milos Forman's movie in America. It's still got the European style, a very special way to describe the story. Bourgeois parents tries to find why their quiet teenage girl ran away from home. It's a story about the gap of generation, between the straight parents and the hippies children. Forman present a funny and tender look at the youth of America of the early seventies. While the teenage girl is very gentle and quiet, the parents, who are afraid she will take drugs, get drunk and plays strip poker. The movie is now a little bit of a kind of oldie film! Just a take a look at all those typical seventies long hairs boys and girls, the way they dressed. Kinda funny, like seeing teenagers in a Doris Day movie of the fifties. There are lot of very funny sequences of the young girls singing at an audition for a show. We can see young Carly Simon in it. There is also a sequence with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. I like it, even if it's a little bit old today. It's strange to say that, because I was a teenager myself when this film was shot by Forman.