Bye Bye Braverman

The description of this movie fails to convey how totally hilarious it actually is, although it gives a partial idea of its bittersweet qualities. Throughout the movie, we see things through the eyes of one of the main characters who keeps imagining his own death. His own pessimistic fantasies contrasted with the absurd predicaments the four friends keep getting into are a riot, and at the same time, convey human frailties most poignantly. There are wonderful cameo performances by Jessica Walter, Alan King and Godfrey Cambridge and others that are worth the price of admission all by themselves. The movie has a distinctly ethnic Jewish sensibility and a real New York feeling as we follow the characters from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn as they look for the funeral parlor for the dead Braverman. Oh, how I wish I could buy this movie on DVD! It's just wonderful. If you ever get a chance to see it, run to the theater!

Bye Bye Braverman is yet another Sidney Lumet valentine to New York City as four friends react to the sudden passing of their friend Leslie Braverman at the tender age of 41. It's the kind of passing and the age and suddenness for the victim have left all four of them in a state of flux.

George Segal, Joseph Wiseman, Sorrell Booke, and Jack Warden are the four friends all hit hard with the news and all now feeling their mortality and are concerned. They all feel an obligation of some kind to see poor Braverman off on the big trip.

It helps to be of Jewish heritage and from New York to appreciate Bye Bye Braverman. Imagine four men squeezed into Sorrell Booke's little Volkswagen, one of them Joseph Wiseman makes no secret of his disdain for Booke in purchasing a German car.

They set out from Manhattan to the funeral parlor which is on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn which is kind of like a residential Champs Elysees in the borough of homes and churches. On the way they have all kinds of adventures including a fender bender with a black driver who is well versed in Jewish idiom played nicely by Godfrey Cambridge. The day is topped off by a voluble rabbi Alan King who can't find enough words to give a proper eulogy to the deceased.

Bye Bye Braverman is funny and bittersweet and kind of sad in its own way. Sidney Lumet got some great performances out of his ensemble cast, most especially from Sorrell Booke who is not a fan of driving three back seat drivers. Nice film to see, especially if you live in New York.

I am not sure why the hate for this from so many quarters. It seems impossibly authentic, and while not for a funeral, like far too many trips I have taken with friends to get something done, and minor hijinks occur.

The death seems like a Macguffin at first, an excuse to get them rolling, but I think it really changed them, and as (deliberately) insufferable as some of the guys were, there were deep points, and some of them had (minor) revelations about life, death, and what their life means.

But, in the end, you feel nothing horrible or great will happen. It is the stereotypical slice of life story, and will change them all... a little. But tomorrow they will go do their writing, their tormenting their children and wives, and I suspect most of them will go see Randolph Scott and eat split pea soup on Thursday.

I haven't yet seen "Starting Out in the Evening", but it clearly lives in much the same territory as "Bye Bye Braverman". Is it too much to hope that the release of this new film will lead to some efforts to rescue this lovely older Lumet film from its undeserved obscurity? At the very least, a DVD should be available!

It looks odd that those who write reviews of Braverman here give it a 9 or 10 (which is what I would do), yet the over-all viewer rating is below 6. I guess that you have to have some feeling for the New York (or upper west side) milieu in order to appreciate this film; but if you do have it, then you're apt to love this film.

Speaking of under-appreciated New York films, the second on my list, after "Bye Bye Braverman", would be Bill Murray's "Quick Change".

One of the best off-beat movies I've ever seen. The eulogy by Alan King was one of the best that I've ever heard. It reminded me of so many sermons that I've heard on the high holidays: a lot of words in search of a theme.