You won't be disappointed!

Wonderful character development!

Masterful Movie

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Gilbert Rolfe (Ron Silver) is a pushover at work. His mother Estelle (Anne Bancroft) is an opinionated crusader who frustrates him. His wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher) tries to get him to work for her parents but he refuses. Jane Mortimer (Catherine Hicks) is his flirtatious co-worker. His father Walter (Steven Hill) divorced Estelle long ago after tiring of her relentlessness. Then she's told by the doctor that she has 4 to 6 months to live. She's a Greta Garbo fan and wishes to meet her. He decides to do all he can to talk to the reclusive Garbo.This is set up for a fun comedy. I can see the movie is trying to do a comedy. However it soon becomes obvious that the comedy isn't hitting right. I think Anne Bancroft tries her best but Ron Silver is no comedian. He can't make it work. It also isn't much of a drama. It's obvious from the start that Gilbert will learn from his experience and stop being a pushover. Everything in between falls flat except for Bancroft. She's great.

I can't add too much to the other reviews. We have a devoted son trying to fulfill his mother's wish, and he goes to extremes in order to fulfill it, all the while trying to unknowingly fulfill his own.I saw this film when it was first released, and was just astounded as to its simple form. It was heart warming and heart wrenching all at once, though I didn't feel it at the time, but admired its simplicity in form. This is the kind of film making they simply don't do anymore. The shots are basic, functional, non-energetic, and do their job. No steadicam work, no overhead remote wire work, nor sweeping helicopter shots. And for that matter there's no wit filled dialogue. No excessive use of foul language. No explosions, gunshots nor car chases. No phony and juvenile romantic moments. No fake intimacy. No fabricated outlandish scenarios. No pre-teen raunch jokes and humor. None of that.It's the way movies used to be. The movie going audience was different back then. More mature. More adult. More willing to behave themselves and take life seriously but also acknowledge a time and place to have fun. They were also smarter when it came to the human condition. They weren't raised on fast food cinema with superheros gallivanting around CGI worlds. It was a different time. A different place. It's what going to the movies used to be like.And that's who this film is for. For those people, the movie audience of yesterday, who didn't mind taking in a matinée to see a romance or detective story on the screen. The kind of movie goer who wasn't waiting to be wowed by the next big breakthrough in special effects, CGI and other technical wizardry. They went for the actors and story.And those are the kind of films Greta Garbo was in. Oh sure, she was beautiful to be sure, but she was also an actress with reclusive tendencies--a quirk that made her legendary among her comeliness and presence on screen. People thought she was beautiful, and then her natural character was captured via lens and film to relay to the movie going audience of the 30s and 40s. People fell in love with her, her characters, her performances, and her films.In this film we bring all those elements together to form a compound for the classic movie lover who lived in the 80s. For anyone who loves their mother, for anyone who loves classic films, for anyone with a misled faith in Hollywood endings, such as I and many others, this film is for you.I haven't seen it since it was first released. And it was a pleasure to see it again.Check it out.

The story of a dying woman's last request is to meet her favorite film actress. It wouldn't be problem but the actress is Greta Garbo who has remained in seclusion for years since her retirement from the film industry. Anne Bancroft plays the dying mother and Ron Silver plays her son. The rest of the cast includes Harvey Fierstein as what else a gay New Yorker, Liz Smith, Denny Dillon, Steven Hill, and others that are well-known in New York City. Anne Bancroft's performance is really something to watch in this film. You want what she wants. In a way, the film is more about her than her son who wants to please his dying mother and grant her one wish even if it's almost impossible. Greta Garbo's legacy and her reclusion in New York City life reads like a great fiction novel but it's true. Garbo who was one of the most famous of her generation didn't hide but didn't promote herself shamelessly and she didn't even make the movie. But it must be a compliment that so many of her fans still remember her fondly.

It is the mere presence of the late Anne Bancroft in GRABO TALKS that keeps the film from being totally intolerable. This rather silly 1984 comedy is about a dying woman (Bancroft)whose dying wish is to meet Greta Garbo, the actress of whom she has a lifelong obsession and knows everything about. This dying wish sends her son (Ron Silver) on a journey to make this wish come true for his mother. It's kind of interesting watching Silver do the detective work required to find a recluse like Garbo but it is lovely to see the lengths the guy goes to in order to fulfill his mother's dying wish. Some talented veterans are seen to good advantage in supporting bits including Steven Hill, Howard Da Silva, Hermione Gingold, Adolph Green, Dorothy Loudon, and Richard B. Shull, but it is Bancroft who really makes this film worth watching. I love the scenes of her laying in her bed talking about Garbo's career and sharing intimate details with her son about Garbo's movies and life. This kind of material would have been maudlin and sappy in the hands of other actresses, but Bancroft makes this material sing and makes this movie worth watching. BTW, that is legendary screenwriter Betty Comden appearing at the end of the movie as Garbo.