Fala Greta Garbo

Imagine you knew that your life were about to end... What would you fill your last days with?

Melancholic and difficult as it may seem, we sometimes tend to occupy our minds with such dilemmas. But this is not as hard as it occurs to be. Rather than thoughts, reflections and grieving atmosphere, these days occur to be precious and simple for the main character of GARBO TALKS where the silver screen legend is, again, not left alone and says her powerful lines... This time, however, she does so at the bedside of her dying fan.

Estelle Rolfe (Anne Bancroft), a mother, a divorced wife, a vivid and an energetic middle-aged woman is told by the doctors of brain tumor. Not much time is left for her...What does she do? What does she dream of? This dream appears to be so eccentric, so peculiar, so unique: she desires to meet Greta Garbo, the celebrity she has always admired and whose roles have always been deeply associated with her private life events. Estelle asks her son, Gilbert (Ron Silver), whom she named after Garbo's most popular co-star John Gilbert, to find the celebrity near her famous New York apartment. Although it seems ridiculous to him, the love to his mother will prompt Gilbert to achieve the impossible...

Despite the fact that the content of the movie seems, at first sight, to be a little bit subjective and the action quite predictable, GARBO TALKS offers a very pleasant and a creative insight into a 'different personality' and her unique determination. The whole film together with its humorous moments as well as some affectionate images, becomes a complex study of being a celebrity fan, of the illusive world created by idolatry and its consequences in REAL LIFE, which is the one and the only and which has always been quite different and should be apart from screen stories. Moreover, this illusive world 'infects' her son. The various characters who come and go are, as if, perceived through the subjective eyes of Gilbert, they are all less important than Gilbert's supreme goal: fulfill his mother's wish. As a result, we can say that GARBO TALKS is a beautiful development of son's love. In that way, it is neither Gilbert nor Estelle who is in the lead. It is rather a mother-son relation that appears to be at the core.

The performances are worth attention, yet, there should be a particular mention about one portrayal and one actress. It is Anne Bancroft as a peculiar woman, a difficult woman, a strange personality who lives within the four walls of her specific world, yet who does not lose contact with the outer world perceiving it, however, from her own perspective. In scenes galore, Ms Bancroft shines as witty, fluent, determined, spontaneous and quite eccentric. Without her marvelous acting, the film would be pretty pathetic. Ron Silver does a good job as her loving son Gilbert, especially in the indefatigable quest for Garbo and in his scenes with Angelo Dokakis. Nevertheless, it is throughout Ms Bancroft who is at the focus of attention: we empathize with her, cry with her, laugh with her...she also drives us crazy...

According to some curious notes, director Sidney Lumet asked Greta Garbo to appear on screen again, after all these years, as herself. Unfortunately, there was no response and, consequently, it is Betty Comden whom we see in the role of the Swedish Sphinx. Greta Garbo died in 1990, six years after the premiere of this film. No one knows if she ever saw this film...

GARBO TALKS is a nice film about determination, dreams, inner world, celebrity adoration and, foremost, about the nostalgia for a world that seems gone, for a world that seems lost. GARBO TALKS is, finally, a pleasant fantasy which says that the unbelievable may become the reality. Why? Seemingly to console us, to make us happy just for a moment...not to be alone with oneself...

Ron Silver's decision to try and grant his dying mother's wish to meet Greta Garbo becomes an all-consuming obsession in "Garbo Talks" (***1/2). This unusual story touches upon a theme that is seldom explored with much depth in films: the effect the movies or a particular star may have on our entire lives. How many of us have had the experience of watching a golden oldie that evokes a vivid memory of where we were and what our lives were like the very first time we saw it? Most of us, I'll bet. This thought is crystallized in the funny and touching monologue Anne Bancroft delivers in her hospital bed to her idol as she tells Garbo what her films have meant to her during key moments of her life. Ron Silver is effectively low-key as Bancroft's devoted son, and the telling cameos contributed by a great supporting cast playing assorted New York oddballs he meets during his odyssey are a special bonus (Hermione Gingold is a rare hoot). There are a few gaps that could probably have been filled in better between the vignettes (I would have been curious to know how Silver spent his night on Fire Island after missing the last ferry boat), but all-in-all this is a wonderful little sleeper. Those who are tuned into it will know what I mean.

Anne Bancroft, in the film Garbo Talks, experiences what many film fans can only dream of, meeting their idol. As Estelle Rolfe fades, we see her son Gilbert grow, helped along by his quest to find the mysterious Greta Garbo before his mother dies.

This film, while not great, is a great film if you are a Garbo fan. Listening to Estelle tell Garbo of all the big moments of her life and how each were punctuated by one of Garbo's films, is a testament to the power film can have.

A beautiful, simple little movie about the love between a mother and her son.

I saw this many years ago, and when I finally found a copy on VCR, snapped it up for my mom... It's now her very favorite movie and gets watched (and recited-along-with!) on a regular basis. It's made her quite the belle of the ball, with all of her friends dying to borrow it!

If your mom likes movies from the 40s, and loved Steel Magnolias, get her this and watch it together.

And if either of you can sit through the scene where Gilbert confronts his mother's idol without crying at the sweetness of the exchange, the panic and vulnerability in his whole being, you're tougher than we are!

Lovely!

I can't add too much to the other reviews. We have a devoted son trying to fulfill his mother's wish, and he goes to extremes in order to fulfill it, all the while trying to unknowingly fulfill his own.

I saw this film when it was first released, and was just astounded as to its simple form. It was heart warming and heart wrenching all at once, though I didn't feel it at the time, but admired its simplicity in form. This is the kind of film making they simply don't do anymore. The shots are basic, functional, non-energetic, and do their job. No steadicam work, no overhead remote wire work, nor sweeping helicopter shots. And for that matter there's no wit filled dialogue. No excessive use of foul language. No explosions, gunshots nor car chases. No phony and juvenile romantic moments. No fake intimacy. No fabricated outlandish scenarios. No pre-teen raunch jokes and humor. None of that.

It's the way movies used to be. The movie going audience was different back then. More mature. More adult. More willing to behave themselves and take life seriously but also acknowledge a time and place to have fun. They were also smarter when it came to the human condition. They weren't raised on fast food cinema with superheros gallivanting around CGI worlds. It was a different time. A different place. It's what going to the movies used to be like.

And that's who this film is for. For those people, the movie audience of yesterday, who didn't mind taking in a matinée to see a romance or detective story on the screen. The kind of movie goer who wasn't waiting to be wowed by the next big breakthrough in special effects, CGI and other technical wizardry. They went for the actors and story.

And those are the kind of films Greta Garbo was in. Oh sure, she was beautiful to be sure, but she was also an actress with reclusive tendencies--a quirk that made her legendary among her comeliness and presence on screen. People thought she was beautiful, and then her natural character was captured via lens and film to relay to the movie going audience of the 30s and 40s. People fell in love with her, her characters, her performances, and her films.

In this film we bring all those elements together to form a compound for the classic movie lover who lived in the 80s. For anyone who loves their mother, for anyone who loves classic films, for anyone with a misled faith in Hollywood endings, such as I and many others, this film is for you.

I haven't seen it since it was first released. And it was a pleasure to see it again.

Check it out.