Every Time We Say Goodbye

I love anything with Tom Hanks - he is such a believable actor, even in this early part of his career. This movie is a fun chick flick where you see the complete vulnerability of people when they fall in love under oppressive circumstances. You just get the "tingles" right along with them. David (Hanks) falls hopelessly in love with a Jewish girl, Sara (Marsillach) of Spanish decent. She tries to fight her feelings, knowing her family would not approve of him because he is a Gentile. They fall more in love through secret trysts and hide their relationship from her family. The intensity rises too high when her family figures out them, and cruelly forces her to put an end to relationship. Sara must choose if she will go against her family to love a man who may have his life taken in this war.

The only thing that disappointed me, was that I felt the movie wrapped up too quickly. I would have enjoyed more relationship development to make the ending more satisfying. However, the character development throughout the movie was great, and Hanks did wonderfully showing the intensity of his love for "Sara."

I first saw this movie in 1986 when I was 28 years old. I'm a big fan of Tom Hanks, and at the time, this was really an off-beat role for him. I enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons. It was like the love stories of the 1940s. There is really no action at all in this film, just the central theme that "True Love Conquers All". This story takes place during World war II, and I disagree with some others here who find the relationship pure fantasy. In a time of war, when human life is so fragile, normal thought processes cease. Let's live for the moment becomes the central theme of things. For a soldier or for one who loves him/her, the only thing that is important is the now. Tom Hanks gives his typical outstanding performance. Spanish actress Cristina Marsillach is stunningly attractive. Being a romantic at heart, I like happy endings. Every Time We Say Good-Bye is a sentimental and moving love story.

If you like love stories - I usually don't care for them - you should enjoy this one. This is my all-time favorite movie. Marsillach is the most darling young woman I've ever seen. You might fall in love as I did.

David falls in love with a girl he meets in Isreal. She's a Jew and he's not, so her family does everything they can to keep them apart. It's a simple movie with no real plot. It doesn't need one. This may be the only time I can say a movie doesn't need a plot.

A really interesting side note is that the girl and her family speak Ladino. It is the Spanish spoken in Spain around 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabel expelled the Jews from Spain. That makes the film a bit of a time capsule, as the language remains unchanged. That made the film infinitely more interesting for me than it might have otherwise been.

Great period piece! Great love story!

One of the earlier efforts of Tom Hanks, this film is a nice, if somewhat unremarkable love story set against the background of WW2 in Jerusalem. Hanks meets a young jewish girl (Marsillach), they fall in love, but have to face her strongly religious family. The story is not as much about the war, as it is about love and religion. Though, the film isn't very "deep", it has some interesting ideas, for example the choice between human feelings and tradition. The strong religious beliefs of the girl's family seem so cruel at times, that it's hard to have any sympathy for them. Maybe a bit too black-and-white for some, but certainly an interesting little film, with (of course) an excellent Tom Hanks in the lead role. 7/10

I ran across this film late at night and found it fascinating. The location shots are beautiful and the acting wonderful.

Set during WW2, the real war is between Hanks, his Jewish lover and her extremely bigoted family.

The scene where the Jewish girl's father calmly tells his daughter that if she marries the Gentile Hanks she will be "dead" to him is chilling. He speaks the words softly like a father telling his daughter a bedtime story and this coldheartedness is what makes the scene so unforgetable.

Great film!