Customer Reviews

Goodbye New York [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Please read the other reviews for an overview of major plot points. The film follows Julie Hagerty's character thru a series of different mishaps, in all of which she seems to come out of on top. However, as the movie progresses, you begin to see this ditsy "Type A" New Yorker show real character and ethical values as she turns down enough money to return to Paris and instead insists that a fruit dealer stop cheating the Kibbutz. In another equally poignant scene she exposes her roommates "boyfriend."

This is nice little indie comedy - nothing more, nothing less. The good guys and gals come out better off and the not-so-nice ones come up short.
It's fun and different.

Well, to me, "Goodbye, New York" is a sweet, romantic comedy that is almost like "Sleepless in Seattle", but not quite. "Goodbye, New York" has Julie Hagerty's character playing an angry New Yorker who finds out that her husband has been cheating on her with another woman and leaves him. She gets on a plane to Paris, but eventually ends up in Tel Aviv and joins a group in the process. This is one of Julie Hagerty's better films to me, even though she was great in both "Airplane" movies and "What About Bob?". This is also kind of ironic because Julie is the only major star in the film. But that doesn't matter because this movie has comedy and a little bit of drama. "Goodbye, New York" also has a little bit of heart as well. Truly one of the better Julie Hagerty movies.

It is difficult to imagine anything similar to a sound reason why Julie Hagerty decided to be involved with this woefully underfunded and banal film. The talented Hagerty who, along with Diane Keaton, has represented the quintessential contemporary suburban neurotic in American cinema for the past 20 years, cannot discover a way to bring this work up from its malnourished roots to a level of interest. The plot involves Hagerty's character's discovery of her husband's infidelity, resulting in her booking a flight to a longed-for Paris, a destination not achieved as she sleeps past the embarkation point in France, and finds herself in Israel with no luggage and little money, taking a place in a kibbutz in order to survive. The director and scriptor, Amos Kollek, son of long-time Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (who is given a bit part), is also the male lead and romantic interest for Hagerty who has a difficult time, along with the viewer, in adopting the illusion that Kollek is interesting in the least. This activity is within a travelogue frame, resulting in a hybrid of a would-be comedy and propaganda piece. There is no character development, simply a flabby episodic structure marked by a subterranean level of taste. Virtually every scene is belabored by poor editing and sound quality and a lack of direction; only the opening moments, with Hagerty in a New York elevator expounding to all about her of her delight in quitting her employer, has any sparkle to it.

This is a foreign film but it's in English. It was made some in New York but mostly Israel about 26 years ago 2 years after I was born so it's not the best quality but I don't really care about that because it's a sweet story about a woman who has some crazy and funny mishaps and grows some along the way and in the end finds a nice guy. I would definitely recommend this movie!

Although it's in English (and some subtitled Hebrew), this is definitely a foreign comedy - the story line runs much differently than your average American film. Julie Hagerty plays her usual kooky, loveable self. She's a disillusioned girl from New York who runs away to Paris only to find herself at the airport in Tel Aviv. Highjinks and mishaps ensue. She's befriended by an Israeli man, learns about life on a kibbutz, and is robbed of her clothing in Jerusalem. The film has an appropriatley light-hearted ending. For travel lovers, there's a lot of great footage in Israel, and a bit in New York. There are references to drugs, homosexuality, and pornography. Nothing too overt, but I would not recommed it for children under thirteen without a parental preview.

Julie Hagerty's finest hour will always be her doggedly literal-minded stewardess in "Airplane" ("He's in the hospital." "The hospital? What is it?" "It's a big place with lots of sick people. But that's not important right now.") This film, on the other hand, which slunk onto my TV screen late one night as if the national television service were rightly ashamed of it, is not going to generate any joyful grins, except perhaps from the Israeli Tourist Board.

The premise is confused to begin with. Hagerty discovers her alarmingly smooth-haired husband in bed with another woman and promptly jets off to Paris. But by a less than hilarious series of circumstances, she ends up in Israel with no money and no luggage. She goes to work on a kibbutz (you'll sit stony-faced as she not very amusingly grapples with bunches of bananas.) More interested in painting her nails than working for the good of the homeland, she earns the disrespect of her flatmate (Aviva Ger, delectable but with the perplexed intensity of someone more used to playing Hedda Gabler in the national theatre than acting in a "gentle comedy".) She meets various men, all of whom turn out dodgy. Eventually she sort-of gets together with this nice guy (Amos Kollek).

Kollek has a pleasant onscreen manner, dry and hangdog, like an even more Jewish Woody Allen without the worry lines. But the script is a rambling mess, a string of anecdotes with no forward movement, and the direction is more daytime-soap-quality than movie standard. When not being merely baffling in its inconsequentiality, it's confused as to whether it's a farce or a movie about How Julie Got Her Groove Back. There are lots of nice shots of lakes and Jerusalem and that's about it. Surely Israel can make better movies than this.