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Goodbye Movie Review : A heartfelt funeral dramedy with poignant premise, sketchy execution

• Times Of India

Goodbye - Official Trailer

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Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive . Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.

julieacharyaray 521 days ago

For a director who gave a fantastic movie like Queen, Goodbye was a very badly made one. Inspite of great actors like Amitabh and Neena Gupta, the movie floundered. The motive for the movie was good but it was just very poorly made. Rashmika’s Hindi accent was awfully mismatched, Amitabh’s constant anger was not understandable , the sons’ characters were not consistent, and some of the characters just came and went without any explanation -like the guy who was on of the pall bearers (who the uncle didn’t like). When Amitabh was talking to the ashes on the bank of Ganga, the monologue was so unnecessarily long! And the character of the colorful priest -he had a purpose that just never solidified. Nakul’s character came out of the blue and just wrapped up everything like a child telling a story. I was disappointed. 

Rohit 63 528 days ago

Okay Very Good Movie

sandy reddy 2 529 days ago

Loved the movie...emotions..values related movie ..must watch

Shrikant Wad 5 531 days ago

The father should have been more worried about her daughter living in a Livein relationship with Muddarssar than she not picking up her mother's call.<br/>Hindu rituals are important and no one should make fun of them.

Vishnu R U 26 531 days ago

The film features Ayushmann Khurrana in a never-before-seen avatar. In contrast to his previous socially-relevant dramas, here, he plays Maanav, a buffed-up Bollywood action hero who wears his stardom on his sleeve. Soon, Maanav loses track of reality, especially when the antagonist

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'Goodbye' movie review: This tear-jerker will make you call your family

It becomes easier to deal with death if you are a believer. Sure, the body of your loved one decomposes, becomes one with the earth, and maybe that’s it, nothing more. It’s like a flame getting extinguished, it didn’t know how it ignited and can’t point to the exact moment it snuffed out. Nobody knows what happens after we die. Do we become souls that find a home in other beings (crows?) or are we just reduced to manure?

In a scene in Vikas Bahl’s latest offering 'Goodbye,' Sunil Grover, playing a tech-savvy pandit, tells Amitabh Bachchan’s family the reason behind putting ashes in the Ganga. It is the mythical story of King Shantanu and his queen. How she took a vow from him before marriage: to not ask questions about whatever she does. How she bears a son and drowns him in the Ganga -- and seven after that-- to release them from the human cycle of life and death. “This is bullshit,” says Rashmika Mandanna, who plays Tara, the opinionated black sheep of the family, masking her grief in anger after her mother’s sudden death. “It is all because ashes have phosphate and it is good to mix it in the river, for better irrigation of crops.”

In a later sequence, the pandit takes Tara into a corner and assures her that what she said was correct. “But your story is boring. Has no beginning, middle or climax,” he says. “Your mother is gone now and all she has left you are her stories. What logic do you find in that?” Maybe that’s what we become after we die, memories for those who loved us, stories to be told to others.

'Goodbye' is the story of a family, dealing with the mother's demise. There is Amitabh Bachchan, the family patriarch, whose lips quiver when he is unable to sustain an argument. Pavail Gulati plays the dutiful, workaholic son, Karan, whose AirPods are plugged in even when he is taking his mother’s body to the crematorium. Elli Avram is Karan’s foreign wife Lisa, trying to be part of the family. There is also Sahil Mehta and Rashmika as Pavail’s siblings. The centre of all these diverse characters, like a bark holding the branches, is Neena Gupta’s Gayatri.

Sample this scene when the family is sitting around the body, the night before the cremation. Gayatri, like a spirit or a memory, comes from inside and sits with them. Everybody is in their character. Pavail’s Karan is sitting with his laptop, Rashmika’s Tara has a grumpy look on her face and Amitabh looks defeated. Gayatri looks at all of them, smiles and asks Karan, “Mr Workaholic, got leave from your job?” To Tara: “I asked you to wish Karan on his wedding anniversary, did you do? Now you’ll have to remember wishing everyone.” Finally to Amitabh, “You didn’t get any better photo of me to put?” There is a smiling picture of her, at the head of the body, a glass of red wine in hand. “Remember how much I drank that night?” It is such a heartwarming scene that you can’t help but smile, while your eyes well up.

ALSO READ | 'Goodbye' makers announce Rs 150 ticket price on opening day

The film is laced with beautiful nuanced scenes that take its viewers on an emotional roller-coaster. You cry and then laugh out loud, you smile in appreciation and then feel like calling your loved ones. Even in grim situations, Vikas Bahl’s writing finds scenes which make you laugh while you hate yourself for giggling. There is a sequence where Ashish Vidyarthi, as the funeral know-it-all uncle (“Don’t teach me, I have done it a thousand times”) asks the family to change the direction in which the body is placed. The viewers gasp and chuckle as the family tries to determine where north and south lie while managing to hold the body in place. Dark humour at its finest.

It’s commendable how each character has a back story and is ably handled by the actors playing them. Rashmika as Tara shows defiance in the little gesture of removing her jacket when Amitabh looks at her. She speaks a lot through her eyes. Even the house help, just before leaving for cremation, rushes back and turns off all the switches and locks the pet dog “Stupid” inside. Such a minor scene conveys how much the family depends on her. Elli Avram is perfectly cast as the foreign wife. She steals the show in a scene where she realizes, with teary eyes, that the Hindu meal doesn’t contain chicken. Amitabh as the piqued (read: ‘Pikued’), mumbling-under-his-breath father, is outstanding. In times like these, Sunil Grover as a holy man unites (“God is ours as we are his, how can he be upset with us?”). He is so effortlessly charming, it should be illegal. And then there is Neena Gupta, spreading serenity in every frame she appears in, like a mother’s calming embrace.

What the film deftly handles is the subject of death. Everybody learns from it in their own, unique way. Some let go of their hair (and their ego) others their rigidity and stubbornness. But I guess one can never get over the loss of losing a loved one, especially a parent. You might learn to live with death. Pavail Gulati’s Karan, in a scene, mindlessly calls out for his mother after a Golgappa vendor comes at the door. He keeps calling out for her and the truth sinks in with every ‘Maa’. Now stop crying stupid, it’s just a film.

Director: Vikas Bahl

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Pavail Gulati, Sunil Grover

Ratings: 4/5 stars

(This story originally appeared on Cinema Express)

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Goodbye Review: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna starrer touches a piece of your heart with a beautifully woven plot

Gretel Sequeira

• October 6, 2022
• Comments off

Goodbye Review: This funeral drama touches a piece of your heart with a beautifully woven plot

• Bubble Reviews
• Goodbye Review: Amitabh Bachch ...

Film : Goodbye

Director : Vikas Bahl

Star Cas t: Amitabh Bachchan, Neena Gupta, Rashmika Mandanna, Pavail Gulati, Sunil Grover, Sahil Mehta, Elli AvrRam.

Bollywood Bubble rating : 4/5 stars

Goodbye Movie Review 

That one last call, that one last hug, that one last meeting, we all want that last ‘Goodbye’ with our loved ones, before they leave this world for their humble abode. The movie Goodbye, directed and written by Vikas Bahl, is a perfect blend of that; an amalgamation of how a family processes through the death of a loved one and life after that. The beautifully woven plot, the well-executed screenplay not only keeps you engrossed throughout the movie but also leaves you in surprise with the fact of how the director-writer plays with your emotions, with a bout of humour. Why, I’d say that? You’ll know!

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Balaji Motion Pictures (@balajimotionpictures)

Ahead of the movie screening, the scene at the cinema hall was strangely chaotic. Everyone was waiting for the movie to start, friends meeting friends, colleagues interacting, so on and so forth. The movie is about to begin and everyone is in their seats. The first scene opens with Rashmika Mandanna (Tara Bhalla), playing a young girl, who according to her father Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan) enjoys to party whenever something calls for a celebration. She is constantly being pinged by her parents. However, she fails to receive any phone calls. In such a situation, the battery of her mobile phone also runs off. Cut to- The Next morning.

Tara Bhalla wakes up to the sound of the door bell. A bar waiter is at her doorstep, with her mobile phone, that she left at the bar. In a very expected turn of events, Tara gets a shocking news about home, as shown in the trailer. A heart-shattering news that she did not expect during early hours of the day. Her mother, Gayatri Bhalla (Neena Gupta) is no more. And, her father, Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan) has tried his best to contact his daughter throughout the night.

Here, Amitabh Bachchan plays the role of a father (Harish Bhalla) who is not so pleased with the modern-day lifestyle of his children. He is constantly at a war of words with them. While the family drama continues, the movie picks pace when Tara Bhalla travels her way back home.

And, Vikas Bahl’s funeral drama unfolds from there on. The theatre is in drop silence throughout the first half. When I say everyone, every person in the room was hooked on to the screen. And, one would only laugh at a funny scene. But, what added to the experience was the tears flowing in the room. When the interval kicked in, I walked through the crowd to step out and grab some popcorn. What surprisingly moved my heart was watching teary-eyed faces in a room full of strangers.

Despite Gayatri Bhalla not being a loved one, one could relate with the situation that every member of the Bhalla family was in. A sense of connection was easily built in the first half. And, the director made sure of that, with his perfectly entwined plot.

Believe me when I say this, the first half builds it so much for you, you are left wondering what’s next? Not only because Goodbye is a fresh, content-driven script, but also because, you are laughing, weeping, and experiencing all sorts of emotions. And, while my expectations went quite out of the window, wondering how the director would manage the second half, let me tell you, oh, he did it quite amazingly!

A funeral drama which highlights the situation that the Bhalla family undergoes after the sudden and untimely death of a very important family member, Gayatri Bhalla, a mother to four and wife to Harish Bhalla. The plot revolves around how her husband, Harish Bhalla tries to connect with their kids, who are living their separate lives, to inform them about the death of their mother.

Star Performances :

Amitabh Bachchan plays the role of Harish Bhalla, father of Rashmika, Pavail, Sahil and others. He is the husband of Gayatri Bhalla (Neena Gupta). Big B plays the stubborn father, who is constantly at a war of words with his children. Or either, he is taunting them about their way of living. Sr Bachchan slips into his role of Harish Bhalla quite effortlessly and keeps you connected with him. He brings forward every Indian father who is protective of his children, although they want to be independent, via his performance.

Rashmika Mandanna makes the right choice for her Bollywood movie debut with Goodbye. The film sees her playing the role of Tara Bhalla, a rebellious young girl, who is as stubborn as her father. She is on a constant quest of understanding the logic between everything. Be it the logic behind the traditions followed after the death of a person, or the immersion of the ashes in a river, Rashmika aka Tara tries to find the logic behind all. Mandanna delivers a stellar performance as Tara Bhalla, a lawyer by profession. And, her performance as Tara is convincible. But, I watched Sita Ramam, her previous Telugu movie and found her playing a similar role of such, a rebelious character, questioning the rights and wrongs.

Neena Gupta plays Gayatri Bhalla. One can say her character acts like ‘glue’ that keeps every character connected with each other. She is an important element in the movie and nothing would have seemed that great without Gupta’s awesomeness. Neena Gupta is the breath of fresh air in the movie in all the beautiful and sad moments of her with her family.

Pavail Gulati essays the role of Karan Bhalla, the older, scholar son, an NRI, married to a foreigner, Elli AvrRam (Daisy). Gulati enacts his character well as the ignorant son, who is more focused on ‘earning money’ and ‘wrapping up’ his mother’s funeral rituals. Elli AvrRam aka Daisy is the sweet foreigner Bahu and she is just that! Elli manages to grab your attention with her innocence and antics. Be it when she is completely unaware about how one dons only white and not black at a funeral, or how a Hindu meal comes without the Chicken.

Ashish Vidyarthi, the know it all uncle and Sunil Grover aka Panditji are two characters in the movie that add the humour and sense element. While Ashish Vidyarthi brings humour in the first half, Sunil Grover quite effortlessly impresses with his spirituality in the second half.  Shivin Narang, and Abhishekh Khan in their roles do not miss to shine.

Direction/Screenplay:

The first half of the film builds the funeral scene at every household. Here, the director shows his creativity by adding humour to a situation of such. He perfectly executes minute situations circling around the neighbors who visit the home, after a member of the family has passed away. One starts relating to the scenes when there is one person, who is the know it all in terms of customs or traditions, solely because “ Maine yeh bohot baar kiya hai (Have attended many funerals) .”

Not just that, we also have the ‘pados wali chachi group’ or as they may fondly call them ‘Gayatri ki Bubbliyaan’. The director manages to add humour to a sad and emotional situation, with moments like the group of women ‘chachi’s’ are so wasted that all they think about is ‘How to create a group to remember Gayatri Bhalla after her passing’. They also come with funny WhatsApp group names like ‘Harish Needs Us’ and ‘Gone Gayatri Gone’; heights of stupidity we would say. But, Bahl smartly gives a glimpse of the scene in every household that lost a loved one.

The screenplay has a few key elements well executed by Bahl. In one scene, Amitabh Bachchan handling the preparations for his wife’s funeral, forgets he’s wearing his chappals or Pavail calling out to ‘Mumma’, later to find out she is no more, breaks your heart.

The director of Photography, Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti, with Bahl, brings out his best in the scene with Sr Bachchan. The actor is crying inconsolably, while immersing the ashes of  his loved one. The boogey running down his nose is so beautifully captured that you feel disgusted for a second, but when as you understand his emotion; it kills you there!

Amit Trivedi does a good job with the music of Goodbye. The hard base and the soul touching melody with Swanand Kirkire’s lyrics strikes an emotional chord. The songs do not create a disturbance in the movie, despite it being a funeral drama, but instead make the movie meatier.

Conclusion: 

The Amitabh Bachchan and Rashmika Mandanna funeral drama is a heartwarming piece of art and it leaves you with a warm and fuzzy feeling. While you are glued on to your seat, the plot is gripping, relatable and heart-winning in every way, for someone who has lost a loved one. Goodbye has its loopholes but it intends to leave you with a warm feeling.

Watch the trailer of Goodbye below after the movie review:

Also Read : Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna strike an emotional chord with Goodbye song Jaikal Mahakal

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Goodbye movie review: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna's heartwarming tale will take you on emotional ride

Rashmika Mandanna makes an impeccable Bollywood debut in Amitabh Bachchan, Neena Gupta and Pavail Gulati starrer Goodbye.

Language: Hindi

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Pavail Gulati, Sunil Grover, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sahil Mehta, Elli AvrRam, Abhishekh Khan

Director: Vikas Bahl

Star rating: 3.5/5

Believe it or not, it’s a natural human behaviour that a person who takes the utmost care and closest to you, will always be taken for granted. And yes, majority of time, these people are our mothers. Well, philosophically we often say that one should always communicate and convey their feelings as time is very uncertain and can make you regret if that person goes far away. But honestly, how many of us have implemented that?

Well, director Vikas Bahl ’s Goodbye brings out that aspect in the most wonderful way on the celluloid but that’s not the only core value of the film. The emotional drama is a heartwarming journey of Harish and Gayatri (played by Amitabh Bachchan and Neena Gupta ) and their kids played by Rashmika Mandanna , Pavail Gulati, Sahil Mehta and Abhishekh Khan.

The untimely demise of Gayatri gives a big blow to Harish and kids but as they go to perform rituals post her last rites, we see the spiritual-awakening process of the family. Vikas Bahl deserves applause for not wasting the time in character built-up and diving into the plot right from the first frame. The way he showcased the realism in the aftermath of a funeral will evoke various kinds of emotions in you.

The emotional roller-coaster will make you smile, laugh and cry with every character making a special place in our hearts. The film deserves a special mention for the beautiful montages, which showed us the emotional and wonderful relationship of Harish and Gayatri.

Talking about the performances, Amitabh Bachchan’s supreme act as Harish will definitely remind teenagers and people who are in 20s and early 30s about their father’s protective yet argumentative behaviour. The megastar evokes emotion brilliantly and leaves us awestruck. Rashmika Mandanna as Tara shines in Goodbye . The actress gets into the skin of this complex character, which is definitely relevant to the current generation. Neena Gupta’s presence and aura is magical. Whenever she is on the screen there is a huge smile on your face.

Talking about the supporting cast, everyone including Pavail Gulati, Ashish Vidyarthi, Elli AvrRam, Sahil Mehta and Abhishekh Khan have played their parts exceptionally well. A special mention to Sunil Grover who steals the show in his cheerful cameo and gives some great life lessons in the quirkiest yet memorable way.

Goodbye is a family treat, which is not to be missed.

Goodbye releases on 7th October in cinemas near you

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Goodbye Review: Rashmika Mandanna Gives Patchy Funeral Drama Rare Brighter Moments

Goodbye review: the performances, despite amitabh bachchan headlining the cast, are rudimentary. the writing is inconsistent and aimed at the easily swayed..

A still from Goodbye trailer. (courtesy: BalajiMotionPictures )

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Ashish Vidyarthi

Director: Vikas Bahl

Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)

Depiction of loss and grief on the big screen can strike a chord only if the emotions at the film's heart are conveyed with genuine empathy and delineated with the requisite subtlety. In Goodbye , written and directed by Vikas Bahl, none of what could make it work over and beyond the surface level is allowed much space.

Goodbye will make you shed copious tears all right but leave you none the wiser about the act of processing of pain and tiding over it. The performances, despite Amitabh Bachchan headlining the cast, are rudimentary. The writing, while achieving an occasional sharp twinge, is inconsistent and aimed at the easily swayed.

The patchy funeral drama has a suitably sombre premise, but the broad-brush treatment of the plight of a Chandigarh family coping with the untimely death of a matriarch - the film revolves around the woman's last rites stretching from the preparations for the cremation to the tehrvi , the 13th day of mourning - gives authenticity no chance.

Sluggish, insubstantial and meandering, Goodbye never acquires the sort of gravitas one would expect from a film that wants to pass itself off as a mature, sensitive exploration of sorrow and its manifestations. The wherewithal to fully measure up to that expectation eludes it. What is worse, some parts of the film only seem to trivialise the act of grieving and remembering.

Goodbye alternates between the morose and the mirthful. The latter component is provided primarily by a bunch of ladies from the neighbourhood who put on a brazenly fake show of sympathy for the bereaved. They fret far more over grabbing a comfortable chair, clicking a selfie or deciding on a name for a WhatsApp group. It is difficult to miss the hint of sexism here.

Goodbye opens with a disco number that goes 'Hic hic hic' and has a tipsy Tara Bhalla (Rashmika Mandanna) dancing without a care in the world. A budding lawyer in Mumbai, she has just won her first case. The next morning, as she wakes up all groggy, Tara realises that she has missed a series of calls from her dad Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan). The old man has bad tidings to convey: Tara's mother Gayatri (Neena Gupta) is no more.

Tara has not seen eye to eye with her father for quite a while but she takes the first flight to Chandigarh to be by his side even as they continue to spar over little disagreements. As preparations get underway for the cremation, a stuck-up family friend P.P. Singh (Ashish Vidyarthi), a self-appointed guardian of tradition, barks instructions to all and sundry about rules and rituals.

Two of Tara's brothers, including the married Los Angeles resident Karan (Pavail Gulati), are duly informed of the demise of their mother. They struggle to make their way back home from two different parts of the world. Karan arrives with his American wife, Daisy (Elli Avram), whose ignorance about what clothes to wear to a Hindu funeral causes some comic consternation. She is a quick learner but, continuing the film's belief that women need schooling, never ceases to be a butt of ridicule.

A third brother is incommunicado. The audience is merely told about his existence but not about his whereabouts. We spend almost the entire length of the two-and-a-half-hour film wondering when this missing guy is going to show up and reinvigorate the funereal air that the film unsuccessfully seeks to sustain in a severely faltering second half.

The young man surfaces when he isn't exactly needed anymore - the departed lady's ashes have already been scattered in the Ganga and the family is back home for the tehrvi - but the film milks the guy's delayed appearance to the last ounce.

Goodbye aspires to be a modern and rational film about a family coming to terms with the death of a dear one. So, it creates room for a young rebellious girl who pooh-poohs elaborate rituals and keeps harping on the fact that this simply isn't the kind of final send-off that her free-spirited mother would have wanted.

Tara is a non-conformist in an orthodox family. Her boyfriend in Mumbai, where she works, is a guy called Mudassar. He accompanies her to Chandigarh for the funeral and serves as one of the four pall-bearers. A few eyebrows are raised but, with P.P. Singh holding his horses, all goes well. That apart, the Bhallas have a young maid who they treat like a family member. One begins to admire the film because Tara appears to having her way.

Sadly, courage deserts Goodbye in the second half. The family embarks on a journey to Rishikesh with Gayatri Bhalla's ashes. There, they engage a chatty panditji (Sunil Grover) to preside over the ceremony. He spouts homilies about the centrality of religious rituals in life and death.

Tara registers her protest but she does so without the vehemence you expect from a girl with her own ideas about what constitutes the act of grieving for a lost one. Everything that you do not understand is not necessarily false, the cheerful priest says to Tara. He also tells her that she should celebrate the stories and memories that Gayatri has left for her.

If that sounds perfectly logical on the face of it, the priest's pronouncements become a pretext for Goodbye to peddle a whole lot of conservative claptrap and allow emotions to be drowned in cloying sentimentality. Amitabh Bachchan's character delivers a soliloquy to the urn that contains his wife's ashes and enumerates all the acts of omission that he was guilty of when she was around in flesh and blood.

It is always easy to move audiences to tears with a story of bereavement designed to make the most of the cliches of the genre. But this is a film in which the only truly forlorn character is the family pet, a Golden Retriever named Stupid, who hangs around the portrait of the woman who brought him home as a puppy. The human characters around the canine are too erratically and laboriously fleshed out to be unswervingly effective.

The aforementioned garlanded photograph does a disappearing act when the departed woman's third son arrives late in the film, blissfully unaware that she has passed on. But that is not as difficult to digest as a CGI crow that appears on the terrace and is believed to be embodying the soul of the dead as its awaits her passage to heaven.

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Goodbye is mounted as a platform for Amitabh Bachchan. He does everything that is expected of him. Rashmika Mandanna holds her own amid the runaway mawkishness, giving the film its rare brighter moments. If only the character she plays was allowed to hold her ground and go to the extent of getting her dad and brothers to support her faith in rationalism, she would have lent Goodbye some much-wanted heft. Neena Gupta, whose character is dead at the outset of the film and who appears only in flashbacks, serves to liven up the proceedings. One wishes there was more of her.

Goodbye is crafted to deliver an unabashed workout for the lachrymal glands. Its grievously shallow methods undermine its avowed purpose.

Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Ashish Vidyarthi

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Goodbye review: Amitabh Bachchan and Rashmika Mandanna can't save insensitive family drama

Goodbye review: talk of performances, amitabh bachchan takes the cake for his sheer sincerity, conviction and blending emotions so well in each scene. rashmika, in her debut hindi outing is decent and that's about it..

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Pavail Gulati, Sahil Mehra, Elli AvrRam

Director: Vikas Bahl

The matriarch of a family, Gayatri Bhalla (Neena Gupta) has suddenly died. As Gayatri's family and husband Harish Bhalla ( Amitabh Bachchan ) wait for their turn at the cremation ground, her neighbourhood ladies are busy thinking what to name the WhatsApp group they're making in the memory of the deceased. 'Gone Gayatri Gone, Lonely Harish ji, Harish ji needs us' are some of the suggestions said out loud before they reach a consensus to call it 'Chandigarh Bubblies'. Why? Because Gayatri called the group by this name and her memories should live on. Wait. There's more. The so-called group of friends pose for a smiling selfie, after all a new WhatsApp group calls for a new profile picture. Well, this is just 0.1% of the insensitivity and absurdity writer-director Vikas Bahl throws at us in this emotional rollercoaster of a funeral drama called Goodbye. Pardon me for saying funeral and drama in the same breath. But as you watch the story unfold in Goodbye, it really is a confused tale wanting to say so much but is so stuck in its flaws that it never rises beyond a funeral. (Also Read | Goodbye song Jaikal Mahakal: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna are heartbroken )

In fact, for the entire first half, I kept asking myself, what is it that Bahl is trying to show though his story and characters? Is Goodbye the story of a grief-stricken dysfunctional family? Or a rebel daughter who refuses to believe in the outdated and orthodox rituals and traditions. Is it a story about four siblings who are settled in different parts of the world and come together to say the last goodbye to their dead mother? Or a dilemma between faith and science. Is it a satire on the death rituals that are prevalent in the society? Or fake tear-shedding relatives. The last two aspects have been beautifully shown in last year's films Ram Prasad ki Tehrvi and Pagglait and those, I must say, served a good benchmark. Unfortunately, Goodbye just doesn't leave that impact or doesn't even get close to it.

Soon after the news of Gayatri's death reaches her children, they all make their way back home in Chandigarh. Tara ( Rashmika Mandanna ), a lawyer who's won her first case, is drowned in guilt for not taking her mother's last call or replying to her message. Karan (Pavail Gulati) flies down from US with spouse Daisy (Elli AvrRam) who orders a ‘hindu’ meal because she 'loves the spicy Indian chicken'. Karan is a workoholic who can't do without his laptop and ear pods even while he's giving a shoulder to his dead mother's body. Angad (Sahil Mehta) is Gayatri's favourite and while taking a flight from Dubai, he doesn't miss ordering butter chicken and butter galic naan during his hotel layover, before his father takes him on a guilt trip over a call, for indulging in party food while he has lost his mother. Angad does order khichdi afterwards! There's another son, Nakul (Abhishekh Khan), who is out on a trekking expedition and realises about this loss much later than the rest of the family.

Amid all this, Harish, his Labrador named 'Stupid' and a house help are busy discussing the chores to be performed on Gayatri's funeral and last rites. Goodbye is a comedy-drama at its core but somehow things don't add up each time a joke is made while showing death and grief. For instance, Harish blindly follows his friend PP's (Ashish Vidyarthi) instructions and lets Gayatri's body be moved here and there to be kept in a particular direction. The comedy around the deceased often comes across in bad taste and atrocious.

There are several emotionally moving and heart-warming scenes in Goodbye, making you tear up every now and then, but the screenplay doesn't let you remain engrossed in them for too long as the misplaced humour chimes in way too often than needed. And mind you, it's not even clever comedy that will trigger laugh. Indeed, it's not a cakewalk to show a sensitive loss like death and infuse humour in it. But instead of being subtle, Goodbye does it a bit too in your face.

Picture this: Angad and Daisy have an unapologetic 'sambhog' after cremating their mother. When the father asks, he says, 'We are doing this for mom. She wanted grandkids.' Don't know if Bahl was trying to give any message here or be plain bizarre.

Talk of performances, Amitabh Bachchan takes the cake for his sheer sincerity, conviction and blending emotions so well in each scene. Rashmika, in her debut Hindi outing is decent and that's about it. Her dialogue delivery doesn't seem forced though her expressions could have been way better in varied situations. Pavail, Sahil and Elli are good in their parts and do justice to the screentime they get. Neena Gupta lights up the screen each time she appears in flashback sequences. Her chemistry with Amitabh Bachchan is endearing. There's also Sunil Grover as the priest who performs last rites. He lifts the storyline from a boring and super dragged first half to a somewhat interesting beginning to the second half. It's interesting to see how he becomes the force to make Tara believe in faith over science.

Goodbye is loaded with emotions but they don't linger on for too long. It's the comedy that takes over the major part and flaws become too evident to overlook. Still, watch it for a slice of life drama.

• Amitabh Bachchan
• Rashmika Mandanna
• Neena Gupta
• Pavail Gulati
• Elli Avrram

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Goodbye Movie Review: Despite the performances GOODBYE suffers from a weak second half and depressive tone.

Despite the touching moments and performances, goodbye suffers due to a weak second half and depressive tone, goodbye review {2.5/5} & review rating.

Goodbye is the story of a dysfunctional family. Tara ( Rashmika Mandanna ) is a lawyer who lives in with her boyfriend Mudassar (Shivan Narang). She wins her first case and hence goes out to party. Her mother Gayatri ( Neena Gupta ) calls and messages but Tara ignores it. The next day, her father Harish ( Amitabh Bachchan ) calls and that's when she learns that Gayatri has passed away. She rushes to her hometown, Chandigarh to be with Harish. Harish has three more children - Karan (Pavail Gulati), Nakul and an adopted son, Angad. All of them are away. Karan and Angad also book the first available flight to Chandigarh. Nakul, meanwhile, is unreachable. Tara is the first one to reach. She and Harish don’t see eye to eye and both clash over the funeral ceremonies. Harish also gets upset with Karan and Angad as he feels that they don't seem moved by their mother's demise. Harish's behaviour leads to fights in the house. But all of them have no choice. They have to stay together under one roof for a few days. What happens next forms the rest of the film.

Vikas Bahl's story is relatable and well-intentioned. Most of us will be able to relate to certain goings-on and moments. Vikas Bahl's screenplay, however, is not well fleshed out. While it’s strong in the first half, the writing goes haywire in the second half. The dialogues are witty and save certain scenes too.

Vikas Bahl's direction is average. This is more in the zone of his acclaimed film QUEEN as GOODBYE is also a slice-of-life film about a character who gets invaluable life lessons after going through a hellish experience. The first half will leave viewers teary-eyed. The comedy is well-infused into the narrative and doesn’t seem out of place. The tracks of the neighbourhood aunties and P P Singh (Ashish Vidyarthi) are funny. They are very relatable as we have all come across such people at funerals. The scene where the family members imagine Gayatri is talking to them is sweet and well edited. The Haridwar track in the second half, involving Pandit ji (Sunil Grover) is also entertaining.

From here on, things happen at random. A few aspects are forced. The animation flashback of Amitabh Bachchan and Neena Gupta is cute and stands out individually. But it’s wrongly placed and ideally should have come at some other point in the movie. Many developments will leave viewers scratching their heads. Tara constantly complains that her mother didn’t believe in blind faith. However, this and Gayatri’s love for the ukulele never gets established in the flashback portions. The track of Nakul is the biggest problem in the film. The makers fail to establish that Harish and Gayatri had three sons. In fact, except at two places, no one in the film is wondering where Nakul is and why hasn’t he made it to the funeral of his own mother! Even the tracks of the other children are not easy to digest. One can still understand Harish was angry with Tara. But his objection to Karan and Angad fails to make sense. They seem to be the bad sons just for the heck of it. One also will be bewildered as to why Angad is having a feast when he is genuinely sad over his mother’s sudden death. Moreover, Angad’s love affair with the maid has no relevance to the principal plot and viewers will truly wonder why the makers have added these bits without any rhyme or reason.

Goodbye – Official Trailer | Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta

Amitabh Bachchan, as always, gives his best and delivers a bravura performance. The way he brings out the sadness and anger over the situation is beautifully portrayed. Rashmika Mandanna has a fine screen presence. Her acting is a bit off in a few places but otherwise, it’s a fine job by the actress in her first Hindi film. Neena Gupta is adorable. Sunil Grover has a cameo but is very entertaining. Pavail Gulati and Sahil Mehta are decent. Ashish Vidyarthi is too good. Elli AvrRam (Daisy) is fair. Shivan Narang gets no scope. The actors playing the role of Nakul, the maid and the neighbourhood aunties are fine.

Amit Trivedi's music is well woven into the film. 'Jaikal Mahakal', 'Chann Pardesi' and 'Maaye' are quite touching. 'The Hic Song' is peppy. 'Kanni Re Kanni' is well-tuned but comes at a wrong point. 'Happy Birthday' and 'Beautiful' are forgettable. Amit Trivedi's background score is better.

Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti's cinematography is neat and uncomplicated. Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty's production design is a bit unrealistic but works. Akangshee Chopra's costumes are straight out of life. Famulus Media and Entertainment's VFX is fine. A Sreekar Prasad's editing is great.

On the whole, GOODBYE works due to the touching moments, relatability factor, and performances. However, the film suffers due to the bizarre developments, weak second half, and depressive tone. At the box office, it will turn out to be an average fare.

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Goodbye Review: Heart In The Right Place

Goodbye makes ordinary places, ordinary people and ordinary events become interesting, observes Mayur Sanap.

Film-makers love to see the excruciating beauty in human grief.

Using the backdrop of a sombre occasion like a funeral as a framing device to explore the family dynamics is perhaps developing into a sub-genre of its own in the Hindi film industry.

Earlier last year, we saw two strikingly similar films in a quick succession, Seema Pahwa's Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi and Umesh Bisht's Pagglait .

Both sublime.

While the nature of the tragedy was different, these films provided an insight on various ways loss is processed.

We have certainly seen variations of the characters in such coming-of-age narratives with an event like a family funeral taking the centrestage. Somehow, though, in writer-director Vikas Bahl's Goodbye , the formulaic premise surprisingly works. Yet again.

Goodbye sets out a framework for family dramedy as the dysfunctional Bhalla clan gets together for mourning after the family matriarch (Neena Gupta)'s sudden demise.

The old man of the house, Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan), struggles to send word to his scattered family, while coming to terms with the untimely passing of his beloved wife.

The estranged siblings, who seemingly had little contact with each other prior to their mother's death, land at their Chandigarh home for the mourning.

We meet Tara (Rashmika Mandanna), a Mumbai-based lawyer whose Muslim live-in boyfriend is tut-tutted over by her father; Karan (Pavail Gulati), whose life is entangled in incessant work meetings and deadlines, arrives from the US with his guileless wife (Elli AvrRam); turban-clad Angad (Sahil Mehta), who is an adopted son to the family, make it just in time for the sombre occasion.

As they all come together under one roof, bottled up emotions and uncomfortable conversations unearth.

The premise instantly reminded me of a British dark comedy Death at A Funeral (2007) and also the Shawn Levy-directorial This Is Where I Leave You (2014).

The stereotypical series of events that follow at occasions like this has a tendency to bring the idiosyncrasies of human nature at the forefront.

It holds especially true in the Indian context, and this is perhaps a reason for Bollywood's continued fascination with the subject.

Goodbye starts light, introducing the characters.

It starts building the storyline, and gradually, the ironical humour in the situation and the camaraderie between the characters become more fluent.

The script packs a lot of authentic emotions while rendering a narrative of loss, grief and broken relationships that also paints a riveting portrait of the frayed father-daughter equation.

In two separate instances, both Harish and Tara are seen pontificating about 'mastery in argument'.

When the two get at loggerheads on the simplest family matters, you know there is no winning here.

While it is interesting to watch how every family member has their own unique traits, none of their characters, other than that of Bachchan, has a fully-realised arc.

For example, it is not quite clear why Tara distanced herself from the family after moving to Mumbai, especially from her mother, who was so supportive towards her.

The bonding of the siblings also plays out at a very superficial, sanitised level, giving us a very vague idea of their equation with each other.

Somewhere in its two hour-24 minutes runtime, Goodbye gradually transforms into well-considered, emotionally resonant fare that Bahl crafts with tenderness and empathy.

The film-maker, whose most compelling work was in Queen nine years ao, struggled to spin the same magic with his last outing, the middling 2019 release, Super 30 .

As a screwball comedy, while Queen was immensely warm and winsome, Super 30 was a bloated, insipid, biography of a mathematician, marred by dramatic overkill.

Here, Bahl is focused on the steady development of the story and characters with no indulgence into unnecessary frills.

He mostly succeeds at establishing this unwonted cinematic style that is engrossing to say the least. Sometimes sappy and sometimes amusing, but never over the top, the film becomes as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking.

In a nicely staged animated flashback sequence, we see the genesis of Harish and Gayatri's courtship as he harks back to the flippant days in the past.

Gayatri, as he describes her, was a heartthrob of all of Chandigarh and way 'out of his league' only to woo her ultimately.

It's the sum of their banter with each other and a sense of a well-lived history between them that provide the necessary weight to the drama.

In a particularly poignant scene, Harish weepingly talks to Gayatri's ash-urn at the Ganga ghat while his kids look fixedly at him. It's been years since Bachchan was seen this vulnerable on screen. In this very moment, his Harish is achingly sad and unfeigned, riven with grief and emotion.

Marking her Bollywood debut, Rashmika gets into the skin of her character with effortless charm.

Her slightly hammy Hindi aside, she delivers a cogent performance as non-conformist kooky.

Watch her expression in a scene when she is first hit with the news of the tragedy. The shock, the sorrow, the regret -- everything is well-encapsulated in a terrific emotional outburst.

Her Tara might be an ordinary middle-class girl, but she has a sense of identity and dreams of her own.

As she navigates her way through baffling paradoxes of cremation rituals, Tara is schooled by her elder brother to 'just follow what's been told' only to turn around at him to ask 'Why?'

Rashmika plays this character with great zeal with a right amount of restraint whenever it's required.

The film makes ordinary places, ordinary people and ordinary events become interesting.

It is mainly due to the way Bahl cleverly and carefully blends everything.

While the bitter truths about life and family relations are portrayed with empathetic lens, the film also reflects the morbid nature of death from a surprisingly wise standpoint.

In the film's best moments, we have Sunil Grover as an enigmatic panditji , who helps the family learn about the funeral rituals. He brings warmth as well as a certain comic snappiness to the goings-on.

The other actors, rounding off the supporting cast, are equally adept.

While the material might have been a little trite, the film skates by on the likability of its cast that renders stirring performances all around.

The ease with which Neena Gupta depicts her freewheeling character, is a treat to watch.

Short length notwithstanding, her joyous Gayatri is felt throughout the film.

Ashish Vidyarthi's delicious portrayal of an uppity uncle at the family gathering is as hilarious as it is repulsive.

Both Pavail Gulati and Sahil Mehta get their moments to shine.

The cast elevates whatever weaknesses there are in the material.

The music is what you can expect from an Amit Trivedi album.

The score enhances in the background instead of arguing with the dialogue.

The songs, especially Chann Pardesi and Maaye , are melodious and distinctive with introspective lyrics.

Another song Jaikal Mahakal , which plays out as the film reaches its denouement, is splendid.

Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti (of Sairat fame) lends an unostentatious camerawork that enlivens the proceedings with deftly composed frames.

Goodbye is embedded with solid emotional moments, a few chuckles and some nice ponderings upon life, love and everything inbetween.

With its heart in the right place, the film is perfectly efficient and likable in both jerking tears and soliciting laughs.

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Good Goodbye Review: Julie Tan, Andie Chen, Tosh Zhang Give Affecting Performances In Tough-To-Watch Cancer Drama

The local anthology film also stars Shane Pow, Aster Yeow and veteran theatre actor Yang Shi Bin.

Tough to tell a story like this. About people stricken with cancer. Even tougher to watch it.

Fortunately, this Singaporean drama, despite being mushy in parts, isn't pushy.

Okay, it gets corny — balloons keep floating up to the sky, a former crush pops up to play a sentimental song with his guitar — and melodramatic. Especially when one character is revealed to be secretly suffering from the Big C.

But overall, Good Goodbye , built around three stories involving terminally ill patients in a hospital, is restrained, dignified and evenly paced with its personal tales interweaved smoothly. The local actors here showcase themselves well with fine performances.

Your attention is seized by one little girl who thumps them all as she flits between infectious hope and private pain. As Betty, a spunky little fighter with a debilitating brain tumour and a dream to become a comedian via her cancer-jokes show called Tumour Humour in her children's ward, Aster Yeow is a great find who doesn't grate but moves you with her physical decline. You actually think she's really losing the ability to speak as the illness catches up with her.

“It's a standup comedy. I have to stand up,” she tells her desperately protective dad (Andie Chen), trying every means to find a cure for his child, as she struggles to get up on stage. You'll shed a heart-breaking tear.

Heartbreaking: Andie Chen and Aster Yeow in a scene from Good Goodbye .

Director-story creator Daniel Yam ( Wonder Boy , 4 Love ) explains in the production notes that this is an “anthology film about pallative care that weaves together three deeply touching stories, each revolving around the central theme of letting go.”

Which means that while the afflicted people seem calm in accepting their fates, this primarily upbeat flick is more about the loved ones around them who need to cope with the strain of eventuality. There's no miracle cure for young or old. Just the stark inevitability of death and grief.

In this, Yam fleshes out a really relatable character in the form of Ah Zheng ( Ah Boys To Men 's Tosh Zhang), a male nurse struggling to cope with losing the people he cares for. “My heart feels unbearably painful. Like I have lost a part of myself,” he reveals to the positive-minded medical social worker, Cindy ( That Girl In Pinafore’ s Julie Tan).

Any caregiver would know the emotional stress of Ah Zheng, who falls for the chirpy Cindy, pepping up others with gusto about the urgency of now while harbouring a less cheerful circumstance for herself.

Meanwhile, an elderly hawker ( Wet Season ’s Golden Horse Award nominee Yang Shi Bin) is overwhelmed by running his fried rice stall and diligently taking care of his grandson ( Ajoomma ’s Shane Pow), a self-absorbed drug addict just released from prison. The fella is on the verge of relapsing while being unaware of his self-sacrificing grandpa's lung cancer.

But you don’t resent the dude because nobody overacts here. Everybody seems right for their roles.

Tough to watch: Shane Pow and Yang Shi Bin in a scene from Good Goodbye .

Here, you wonder whether director Yam, gathering such a competent cast, could have been more ambitious. If this was, say, a Japanese pic, there'd be a single poignant moment to define the human condition. A The Farewell approach would produce astute comedy.

Yam's movie is a simple, straightforward narrative, an effectively handled well-meaning one about the importance of lives well lived and loved with significant meaning right at the end.

Making it perhaps a bit too sanguine and safe.

But the man has shown with Good Goodbye that he can draw refreshingly good performances out of his local actors.

And his next Singaporean film will surely be something to look out for. (3.5/5 stars)

Photos: mm2 Entertainment

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, a man out of time.

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Altman began with a screenplay by Leigh Brackett , the legendary writer of “ The Big Sleep ” (1946), the greatest of the many films inspired by Marlowe. On that one her co-writer was William Faulkner . There is a famous story that they asked Chandler who killed one of the characters (or was it suicide?). Chandler’s reply: “I don’t know.” There is a nod to that in “The Long Goodbye” when a character who was murdered in the book commits suicide in the movie.

Certainly the plot of “The Long Goodbye” is a labyrinth not easily negotiated. Chandler’s 1953 novel leads Marlowe into a web of deception so complex you could call it arbitrary. The book is not about a story but about the code of a private eye in a corrupt world. It is all about mood, personal style, and language. In her adaptation, Brackett dumps sequences from Chandler, adds some of her own (she sends Marlowe to Mexico twice), reassigns killings, and makes it almost impossible to track a suitcase filled with a mobster’s money.

I went through the film a shot at a time two weeks ago at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado, sitting in the dark with several hundred others as we asked ourselves, What do we know, how do we know it, and is it true? Many of our questions center on the rich, sex-drenched Eileen ( Nina Van Pallandt ). Does she desire the death of her husband, Roger Wade, an alcoholic writer played by the gruff old bear Sterling Hayden ? Or does she only want free of him? What about that seductive dinner she serves Marlowe ( Elliott Gould ) on the night Wade walks into the ocean? Does she intend to sleep with Marlowe? She does in the novel, and he is later part of her alibi when she kills Wade and makes it look like suicide. But here she doesn’t kill Wade. What is the link connecting Terry Lennox (the baseball star Jim Bouton), Eileen and the gangster Marty Augustine ( Mark Rydell )? Does Augustine owe Wade money, as he claims to Marlowe, or does Wade owe Augustine money, as Wade implies in a Freudian slip? What is the exact connection between any money owed to anyone and the money in the suitcase? Only a final, blunt speech by Lennox, Marlowe’s unworthy friend, answers some of our questions.

Elliott Gould says on the DVD that Altman made many changes to Brackett’s screenplay, but that when she saw the movie not long before she died, she said she was “more than satisfied.” One change is to make Philip Marlowe, that laconic loner with a code of honor, into what Altman and Gould privately called “Rip Van Marlowe.” When he awakens at the beginning of the movie, he’s a 1953 character in a 1973 world. He wears a dark suit, white shirt and narrow tie in a world of flower power and nude yoga. He chain-smokes; no one else smokes. He is loyal to Terry Lennox and considers him his friend, but the movie establishes their friendship only by showing them playing liar’s poker, and Lennox is no friend. Marlowe carries a $5,000 bill for most of the movie, but never charges for any of his services. He is a knight errant, and like Don Quixote imperfectly understands the world he inhabits.

The earlier movie Marlowes ( Humphrey Bogart , James Caan , James Garner , Robert Mitchum , Robert Montgomery, Dick Powell) are terse and guarded. They talk, as Chandler wrote, “with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.” And they talk a lot, because they narrate the novels. Gould’s Marlowe has these qualities, but they emerge in meandering dialogue that plays as a bemused commentary to himself. In the novel, Marlowe has no pets, but here he has a cat, and in the famous pre-credit opening sequence he attempts to convince the cat he is supplying its favorite cat food, but the cat is not fooled. In a movie that throws large chunks of plot overboard, there is no reason for this sequence, except that it establishes Marlowe as a man who is more loyal to his cat than anyone is to him.

The plot can be summarized in a few words, or endlessly. The rich playboy Lennox asks Marlowe to drive him to Tijuana. Marlowe does, and is questioned by the cops and jailed after Lennox’s wife is found beaten to death. Released by the cops after Lennox’s suicide in Mexico, Marlowe is visited by the gangster Marty Augustine and his goons. Augustine thinks Marlowe has money Lennox was carrying. In one of the most shocking moments in movie history, he commits an act of cruelty and says, “Now that’s someone I love. Think what could happen to you.”

Marlowe follows him to the Malibu beach house of the writer Roger Wade and his wife Eileen, and is later hired by Eileen to track down Roger after he runs away to a shady drying-out sanitarium. How are Lennox, the Wades and Augustine connected?

I don’t think the answer to that question concerns Altman nearly as much as the look and feel of the film. He wants to show a private eye from the noir era blundering through a plot he is perhaps too naive to understand. The movie’s visual strategy underlines his confusion. Altman and his cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond , “flashed” the color film with carefully calculated extra light, to give it a faded, pastel quality, as if Marlowe’s world refuses to reveal vivid colors and sharp definition. Most of the shots are filmed through foregrounds that obscure: Panes of glass, trees and shrubbery, architectural details, all clouding Marlowe’s view (and ours). The famous Altman overlapping dialogue gives the impression that Marlowe doesn’t pick up on everything around him. Far from resenting the murkiness in his world, Marlowe repeats the catch-phrase, “It’s all right with me.” The line was improvised by Gould, and he and Altman decided to use it throughout the story as an ironic refrain.

There is another refrain: The title theme, which is essentially the only music heard in the film. Altman uses it again and again, with many different performers (even a Mexican marching band, with the sheet music pinned to the shirt of the man in front of them). At Boulder, the musician Dave Grusin , who worked on the film, and told us Altman gathered a group of musicians on a sound stage and had them spend an evening playing around with different arrangements of the song. Why did Altman only use the one song? I’ve heard a lot of theories, of which the most convincing is, it amused him.

The visuals and sound undergo a shift after the suicide of Roger Wade. There is a scene on the beach where Marlowe pesters people with questions and accuses them of dishonesty; he sounds like a child, a drunk, or both. But then color begins to saturate the pale visuals, the foregrounds no longer obscure, characters start talking one at a time, and finally in the vivid sunlight of Mexico, Marlowe is able to see and hear clearly, and act decisively.

Casting is crucial in film noir, because the actors have to arrive already bearing their fates. Altman’s actors are as unexpected as they are inevitable. Sterling Hayden, a ravaged giant, roars and blusters on his way to his grave. As his wife, Altman cast Nina Van Pallandt, then famous as the mistress of Clifford Irving, author of the celebrated fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. She could act, but she did more than act, she embodied a Malibu beach temptress. Mark Rydell, the director, seems to be channeling Martin Scorsese ’s verbal style in a performance that uses elaborate politeness as a mask for savagery. And Elliott Gould is a Marlowe thrust into a story were everybody else knows their roles. He wanders clueless and complaining, and then suddenly understands exactly what he must do.

“The Long Goodbye” should not be anybody’s first film noir, nor their first Altman movie. Most of its effect comes from the way it pushes against the genre, and the way Altman undermines the premise of all private eye movies, which is that the hero can walk down mean streets, see clearly, and tell right from wrong. The man of honor from 1953 is lost in the hazy narcissism of 1973, and it’s not all right with him.

Also in the Great Movies series at rogerebert.com: Altman’s “ McCabe and Mrs. Miller ,” “ 3 Women ” and “ Nashville ” and Hawks’ “The Big Sleep.”

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Long Goodbye (1973)

112 minutes

Directed by

• Robert Altman
• Leigh Brackett

Based on the novel by

• Raymond Chandler

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