Avalon

For me, the greatness of films nearly always comes from the writing. This is simply one of the best. I am not Jewish, and this is, I suppose, a Jewish story. But far more than that, it is a human story. Every word, every gesture in the movie rings true. This is, without question, Levinson's greatest work. (Diner is mediocre, and Liberty Heights isn't anywhere close to great, but this movie is amazingly special.) The Thanksgiving scene is only one of numerous perfect ones. You must see this film. You will rarely be moved, or laugh, or think more.

Avalon is really a beautifully written story and Levinson's cast is excellent. This really is one of the better stories of the American experience. Actually I'd have to say it's the BEST story of the American experience ever brought to film. I say that knowing that it really is the urban Jewish-American experience and not one that is necessarily shared by other groups. I dont care for rigid definitions of the American experience because it can be a vastly differing one. Having said that though, I must still say that Avalon is a wonderful chronicling of an American immigrant family originaly from Eastern Europe who put down roots in the Avalon section of Baltimore. It is refreshing in that New York City is generally credited for this kind of narrative. So much so that it's easy to forget that ethnic communities sprang up in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco etc. Not just NYC. Through the narration of Sam Krichinsky we see his children and grandchildren grow up and he grow old. We are with him when his wife (Joan Plowright)passes away, When his son's business is destroyed by fire, when he argues with his oldest Brother and a great rift divides the Krichinskys forever. we hear his stories of this and that and always he returns to the 4th of July 1914 when he arrived in Baltimore for the first time. Levinson is fantastic as he films what is obviously an idealized representation seen only in Sam Krichinsky's "rose colored" memory of the event. There is so much poignance, sorrow, and love in "Avalon" and small details become deeply profound moments in the life of an elderly man struggling to remember the good times while the world moves on. The closing scene in which Sam's Grandson (now a father himself), with whom he has always had a close relationship, visits him in a nursing home. We know from Sam's state that the end cannot be far. Its a brief scene with little dialogue but it is AWESOME!!!! in the sublime way it conveys it's message. I choke up just thinking about that scene. See "Avalon"!!!

The third of Barry Levinson's Baltimore trilogy (following ‘Diner' and ‘Tin Men') is a gentle and low key yet hugely impressive film that is a worthy successor to his enormously prosperous and Oscar winning ‘Rainman'. Although adopting the box office disaster strategy – ‘no stars just talent', Levinson manages to create a small yet thoroughly incisive look at the changing face of America and its values during an eventful period in its cultural history.

Set in the mid 1950's at the height of the post war economic boom and on the eve of Television's dominance of domestic life, ‘Avalon' looks closely and lovingly at the lives, loves and disasters of three generations of a Polish family in the New World. Opening with a magnificently shot flashback of Mueller-Stahl's arrival in America on July 4th some forty years earlier, the film develops a nostalgic yet never overtly sentimental approach to its subject matter and always keeps its story-line rooted firmly in reality.

Although the film has no specific plot or central character, the magnificent Mueller-Stahr emerges as the principal paternal figure trying to keep his increasingly disparate family of brothers, children, nephews, nieces and sundry together amidst the turning tides of cultural change. Joan Plowright plays his stubborn wife who has never learned to fully adapt to the lifestyles in the West, while his son Aidan Quinn is trying desperately to cash in on the American dream that brought his father to those shores in the first place.

A tale told with great colour, character and humour and populated with a huge assortment of human characters and memorable moments, 'Avalon' is a beautifully composed piece of American cinema.

I have always liked this movie and am sorry it did not do as well as other Levinson films. It's obviously a Jewish family that is depicted although there are no specifically Jewish scenes, like lighting the candles or anything like that.

As the family becomes more Americanized they move away from the family circle center. The suburbs and TV become the two most alienating forces. Armin Mueller-Stahl, Joan Plowright and Elijah Wood were all great.I particularly liked Aiden Quinn as the father although he is obviously not Jewish.

I mention it as one of the Best American Movies about Immigrants on Associated Content.

If you want a film that celebrates a way of life that's almost gone, that's well-acted in every department, and that gives you a major case of the warm fuzzies in a way the movies seem to have forgotten how to, Barry Levinson's "Avalon" is definitely it.

First, let's examine the cast: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Perkins, Elijah Wood (some ten years pre-"LOTR"), Joan Plowright and Lou Jacobi ("Time to make the donuts!") all give fine, understated performances. Mueller-Stahl, in particular, is the sort of gentle, old-world grandfather anyone might have wished for.

But, as I said earlier, what this film is mainly about is a loving salute to a way of life that's almost gone. As a second generation American growing up in New York, what strikes me about "Avalon" is how real it all is, especially if you grew up in this era, as I did. Young Michael Kaye might have been myself in many ways. And a recent family reunion brought this feeling all back again.

A Wonderful, warm movie. See it!