Ruas da Liberdade

While hardly the gems that are Diner, and especially Avalon, Levinson here offers another sweet meditation on his Baltimore roots. The love story between Ben and Sylvia is especially moving to every white boy who ever fell in love with a black girl before it was acceptable, and most of the credit goes to the enchanting Rebekah Johnson. Older brother Van's travels in WASPland are more cliche-ridden, though one must salute the acting of Adrien Brody and his friend Trey, who actually make their unlikely friendship believable. Trey's deb girlfriend is pure cardboard. The real standouts here are Joe Mantegna and Orlando Jones going toe-to-toe in dangerously caricaturish territory. Both manage to pull it off. One anachronistic comment- Scribbles calls one of Nick's men the Pillsbury Jewboy--far as I know that advertising icon didn't appear till 10 years after the film's 1954-55 setting. Again, no one will call this film a classic, but seen as part of a 4 film whole (Tin Men is more the aberration than Liberty Heights) it stands proudly and pulls at these 40 year old heartstrings from a very similar North Bronx background.

In Baltimore, 1954, the Kurtzman family is a Jewish family living in the area of Liberty Heights. Ben (Ben Foster) is a rebel teenager, who has a crush on his black friend Sylvia (Rebekah Johnson). His college brother Van falls in love with Dubbie (Carolyn Murphy – why this gorgeous actress has just this movie in her filmography?), a very problematic girl. He becomes friend of Trey Tobelseted (Justin Chambers), a young man from a very wealth family and boyfriend of Dubbie. Nate (the excellent Joe Mantegna) is the father, who lives from an illegal lottery of numbers. Nate loves his family and keeps them apart of his legal problems. Ada (Bebe Neuwirth) is the mother, who keeps the tradition of their family. Little Melvin (Orlando Jones) is a drug dealer, who wins a fortune of US$ 100,000 (in 1954) in Nate's lottery, raising a serious situation in the plot.

This movie is wonderful: the soundtrack, photography and costumes are marvelous. The story, about segregation of Jews and blacks and love between races, is very beautiful. The viewer will not be disappointed with this entertainment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Ruas de Liberdade" ("Liberty Streets")

I found "Liberty Heights" an immensely entertaining movie which shows great talent, especially actor-wise. The movie is a great portrayal of how things looked like in America in the 50's, showing religious, racial, social and other differences and also showing how these differences can easily be overcome once a person realizes(or as was the case in this movie-doesn't even consider) that different only and always means worse. Ben Foster steals the show from the first scene and Adrien Brody is in close second place. And because they had such screen persona, or power if you will, I found if distracting and a bit out of place when at the end the story shifted too much to Joe Mantegna, their movie father. I have much respect for the man, he's an immense and always fun-to-watch actor, but in this movie it was him that was overshadowed, which is ironic since HE was the one who usually did this. A great, lightheaded growing-up movie that begins and ends with a nostalgic note, once again making me wish I'd have a chance to live in that day and age. Much praise to Barry Levinson for composing "Liberty Heights". 8/10

From time to time one comes across remarkable films like Liberty Heights where simple story is told in extraordinary manner. This film is about the Jewish Kurtzman family, but we follow the father and his two sons as three separate stories. Each one of them having their own struggle and challenges to face. What struck me as the most amazing part of the story was the easiness of it, how it flowed and gently tackled serious issues in the community of that time. It portrait itself in a realistic manner, where there were no real baddies or large showdown, just people going through life. The performance of the actors was brilliant, with Joe Mantegna (the father), showing once more what a talent he is. This film won't leave anyone untouched. 8/10

this was a fine film, if not anything to blow one's hair back, leave one humming, or slipping into the dialogue. The story was set in the mid-1950s, accurately looks the part, and is actually three tales involving the three males in a middle class family.

Yes, there is the treatment of racism and the self-consciousness that it spawns on both sides, and yes, the death throes of anti-semitism (at least among decent people). A middle-aged man finds he has outlived the world in which he came to prosper, and does not know what to do. There is something else: the "grass is always greener" hypothesis in ethnic/social class mixing. One of the protagonists meets his "shiksa goddess" and her lot, longs to cross a divide he does his best to bridge -- and finds his betters have feet of clay for all their poise and social standing.

LIBERTY HEIGHTS is in the best sense a North American story. Leaving one's ghetto, the benefits of learning to do so, and creation of a better world. Note how toward the end, the flawed and even cruel W.A.S.P. society boy becomes better for having accepted the hand of friendship of someone his father might have avoided.