Taking Off

A wonderful American debut from Milos Forman, who transcends a rather schematic premise ('wayward' daughter is actually quite sensible, while bourgeois parents enter a counterculture of pot-smoking and (nearly) wife-swapping orgies) with his wise European eye, which mixes clear-eyed observation with fantasy, implausibility and farce. The lead couple are acted in such a low key, you're astonished at the emotional power they generate, and while the subject matter is quite depressing, Forman's comic benevolence is always foregrounded: the convention for parents of missing children, and the accompanying lesson in parental empathy, is an American classic.

I saw this movie on it's original release and was mightily impressed. I'd previously seen Forman's "The Fireman's Ball" and liked the quirky style that he repeats so well with this one. The tale of the confused parents trying desperately to understand their "wayward" daughter is gently told but is bitingly satirical. I will never forget scenes of the parents attending the seminar on how to smoke a joint and the convention for the parents of fugitive children. So where has this movie gone? I checked out the on line video store here in the UK to find that it was deleted in 92. Great shame, it's a classic.

This is the first Milos Forman's movie in America. It's still got the European style, a very special way to describe the story. Bourgeois parents tries to find why their quiet teenage girl ran away from home. It's a story about the gap of generation, between the straight parents and the hippies children. Forman present a funny and tender look at the youth of America of the early seventies. While the teenage girl is very gentle and quiet, the parents, who are afraid she will take drugs, get drunk and plays strip poker. The movie is now a little bit of a kind of oldie film! Just a take a look at all those typical seventies long hairs boys and girls, the way they dressed. Kinda funny, like seeing teenagers in a Doris Day movie of the fifties. There are lot of very funny sequences of the young girls singing at an audition for a show. We can see young Carly Simon in it. There is also a sequence with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. I like it, even if it's a little bit old today. It's strange to say that, because I was a teenager myself when this film was shot by Forman.

I discovered this by accident, and have to wonder why it has been so ignored these last 22 years. Forman's take on the America of the late sixties is a beautiful mood piece, at times amusing, at times moving, but always acted, directed and written with subtlety and wit. I would reccomend this as a definative film about the culture of the Sixties.

I first saw this in 1989. It was old then, but nearly 20 years later its just as fresh and witty. Superb sound editing, great comic set pieces (the how to smoke a joint scene or the black salute), poignant (finding the smokes in the Jeannie's room with "Even the white horses" playing), the music performances (Ode to a Screw) and such acute observation of American Society. Nothing is missed: the comic potential of the fact that there is a "Society for the Parents of Lost Children(SPLC)", the realization that it is the parents who are lost; the lucrative potential of the counter culture and the "establishment's" realization of this (best seen in the hilarious speech by Jeanies boyfriend toward the end). Much of the comedy is drawn from the characters' little crises in their lives and their attempts to solve them, but it is always a warm and affectionate comedy. Forman likes these people, he likes America, he's willing them on, every slightly misguided step of the way.