Best movie of this year hands down!

Excellent adaptation.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

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.

Imagine you knew that your life were about to end... What would you fill your last days with? Melancholic and difficult as it may seem, we sometimes tend to occupy our minds with such dilemmas. But this is not as hard as it occurs to be. Rather than thoughts, reflections and grieving atmosphere, these days occur to be precious and simple for the main character of GARBO TALKS where the silver screen legend is, again, not left alone and says her powerful lines... This time, however, she does so at the bedside of her dying fan.Estelle Rolfe (Anne Bancroft), a mother, a divorced wife, a vivid and an energetic middle-aged woman is told by the doctors of brain tumor. Not much time is left for her...What does she do? What does she dream of? This dream appears to be so eccentric, so peculiar, so unique: she desires to meet Greta Garbo, the celebrity she has always admired and whose roles have always been deeply associated with her private life events. Estelle asks her son, Gilbert (Ron Silver), whom she named after Garbo's most popular co-star John Gilbert, to find the celebrity near her famous New York apartment. Although it seems ridiculous to him, the love to his mother will prompt Gilbert to achieve the impossible...Despite the fact that the content of the movie seems, at first sight, to be a little bit subjective and the action quite predictable, GARBO TALKS offers a very pleasant and a creative insight into a 'different personality' and her unique determination. The whole film together with its humorous moments as well as some affectionate images, becomes a complex study of being a celebrity fan, of the illusive world created by idolatry and its consequences in REAL LIFE, which is the one and the only and which has always been quite different and should be apart from screen stories. Moreover, this illusive world 'infects' her son. The various characters who come and go are, as if, perceived through the subjective eyes of Gilbert, they are all less important than Gilbert's supreme goal: fulfill his mother's wish. As a result, we can say that GARBO TALKS is a beautiful development of son's love. In that way, it is neither Gilbert nor Estelle who is in the lead. It is rather a mother-son relation that appears to be at the core.The performances are worth attention, yet, there should be a particular mention about one portrayal and one actress. It is Anne Bancroft as a peculiar woman, a difficult woman, a strange personality who lives within the four walls of her specific world, yet who does not lose contact with the outer world perceiving it, however, from her own perspective. In scenes galore, Ms Bancroft shines as witty, fluent, determined, spontaneous and quite eccentric. Without her marvelous acting, the film would be pretty pathetic. Ron Silver does a good job as her loving son Gilbert, especially in the indefatigable quest for Garbo and in his scenes with Angelo Dokakis. Nevertheless, it is throughout Ms Bancroft who is at the focus of attention: we empathize with her, cry with her, laugh with her...she also drives us crazy...According to some curious notes, director Sidney Lumet asked Greta Garbo to appear on screen again, after all these years, as herself. Unfortunately, there was no response and, consequently, it is Betty Comden whom we see in the role of the Swedish Sphinx. Greta Garbo died in 1990, six years after the premiere of this film. No one knows if she ever saw this film...GARBO TALKS is a nice film about determination, dreams, inner world, celebrity adoration and, foremost, about the nostalgia for a world that seems gone, for a world that seems lost. GARBO TALKS is, finally, a pleasant fantasy which says that the unbelievable may become the reality. Why? Seemingly to console us, to make us happy just for a moment...not to be alone with oneself...

..then this movie is for you. SPOILER ALERT-Anne Bancroft plays a politically correct mother who loves doing the right thing, sticking up for the small fry, her son Gilbert, and Greta Garbo. Her relationship with her meek son is believable and sometimes touching. When she is diagnosed with a disease that will cut her life short, she declares she wants to meet the elusive icon, and Gilbert is in charge of making her dream a reality. However, Gilbert is not the aggressive type; he is terrorized by his boss, his secretary and his wife (Carrie Fisher is hysterical as his princess bride). So, against his nature, he goes on a search for the actress most unlikely to give a damn about him or his dying mother. Suffice to say the end is bittersweet, and all the actors give it their best. Bancroft is allowed to let loose and has a ball; she is especially good at confronting a group of hardhats who had been verbally harassing a young woman on the street. She is also very good in the scene following her meeting Garbo. Ron Silver is terrific as Gilbert, a put-upon guy if there ever was one. He does find happiness, with a co-worker (Catherine Hicks) and even gets to impress her, when the normally silent Garbo talks to Gilbert long enough to say 'hello' in a chance meeting in Central Park, Hicks is naturally curious and thrilled (by now he's left the selfish Carrie Fisher).The movie is very good, not great. Its extremely hard to believe Hicks would be able to afford her apartment on the salary she must make working in an office job. And as much as the mother/son relationship was touching, I can't help but wonder why such a dynamically strong womans' sensibilities did not rub off on her son, why he's such a dolt. She gave him love but maybe he needed more than that.

This, as you have guessed, is one miserable little film. Miserable, but leading to a "good for you (the hero)" ending. The misery gets heaped on just as it did for George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life). His marriage destructing and ending, his horrible work situation, the terminal illness of his mother (beautifully paid by Anne Bancroft), and his lack of a "backbone", provide no relief from his lot in life.I've only watched the film, all the way through, once or twice. The misery is much too intense for me. The wait for something "good" to happen seems to take forever. I prefer to pick up the action after the final hospital scene and assume his misery, instead of experience it repeatedly (much like the way I watch "It's a Wonderful Life"). Identifying with misery is easy, but "Garbo Talks" allows us hope and leaves us on a high note........PS-- When Garbo does finally "talk" (one sentence), she speaks volumes.......