Taking Off

Milos Forman is settling in to America here, learning the ways of rich Puritans. The casting is just about perfect; I don't recall Buck Henry being as expressive--in that deadpan way--in a movie. The scene between Georgia Engel and Lynn Carlin, in which Engel relates stories of her husband's incredible sexual drive is wonderfully funny. The strip poker scene between Henry, Carlin and their guests Audra Lindley and Paul Benedict, that ends with Henry singing an aria, naked, on top of the dining-room table has passed into cinematic legend.

Miroslav Ondricek's camera work is really exceptional; it makes a success of one scene that drags on too long--the therapy group with the participants smoking reefer. Ondricek's ability to give life to interiors is amazing: see how he cuts from the ancestral paintings to the would-be dopers, making comments on both. This man, who turns 70 this year, is a master, and if I just give a partial list of his work you will know what I mean: The Fireman's Ball, If..., O Lucky Man!, Hair, Amadeus.

A wonderful American debut from Milos Forman, who transcends a rather schematic premise ('wayward' daughter is actually quite sensible, while bourgeois parents enter a counterculture of pot-smoking and (nearly) wife-swapping orgies) with his wise European eye, which mixes clear-eyed observation with fantasy, implausibility and farce. The lead couple are acted in such a low key, you're astonished at the emotional power they generate, and while the subject matter is quite depressing, Forman's comic benevolence is always foregrounded: the convention for parents of missing children, and the accompanying lesson in parental empathy, is an American classic.

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.

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 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.