Longing is a very different kind of film, one which operates at a different emotional pitch than most Hollywood dramas. It’s a very faithful remake of filmmaker Savi Gabizon’s Israeli original of the same name from 2017; he brings it to a North American context with help from Richard Gere and Israeli-American genius Oren Moverman (who directed Gere in one of his best films, Time Out of Mind). The new film also stars Diane Kruger and will release in select theaters on June 7, 2024 & VOD on June 28.

Gabizon writes and directs the tale of a father learning to love and grieve for a son he never knew existed. The film opens with a rushed lunch meeting in which an old flame from nearly two decades prior throws a wrench in the cold world of businessman Daniel Bloch (Gere). He quickly learns that his past lover birthed his son nearly 18 years ago, after they ended their relationship and moved miles away from each other. The woman excuses herself and heads to the restroom in tears. Daniel calls his lawyer, preparing to protect his assets. The woman returns and informs Daniel that his son died two weeks ago. He’s invited to the funeral.

Longing follows Daniel as he heads to the funeral and does some kind of emotional detective work, trying to understand who his son was — what did he care about, how did he live, and were they similar? Along the way, he learns of another recently deceased teenager in town, this one a suicide. A strange idea forms in Daniel’s head, one which will undoubtedly make some viewers uncomfortable. But that’s one of the goals of Longing: to confront reality in all its awkward, tragic absurdity. Gabizon spoke with MovieWeb about choosing to remake his own film, collaborating with Gere as a partner, and the inspiration behind it all.

The Posthumous Wedding of Longing
Longing (2024) In Longing, Daniel Bloch (Richard Gere) is shocked to discover a startling secret from his past and becomes immediately consumed by the tragedy. With each new encounter, Daniel uncovers a deeper layer of himself and the life he could have had.Release Date June 7, 2024 Director Savi Gabizon Writers Savi Gabizon Distributor(s) Lionsgate Expand

When discussing the 2017 version of Longing (Hebrew: געגוע), Gabizon told an audience at the Israel Film Center that he was partly inspired to write the film after his girlfriend at the time returned from a trip to Singapore and told him a story. She had seen a wedding arranged by the families of two dead children, with the bride and groom already deceased. This was the catalyst for Longing. We asked Gabizon he found so poignant about that culturally specific ceremony, to the extent that he’d make two films about it.

“I think that the thing that interests me in this kind of wedding is a lot more the psychological needs of the parents than the metaphysical and the religious sides of this phenomenon,” explained Gabizon. “So I think that parents that lose their child, they want to continue to ‘mess’ with it, to mess with him, to deal with him. And [the posthumous wedding] is a wonderful and also a bit comical way to show these needs, you know, which are painful and ridiculous in the same way, sometimes. So, yes, this is the source in my soul, that connection with this scene, with this wedding.”

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Savi Gabizon Remakes His Hit Film and Changes the DNA

There have been other international filmmakers who have decided to remake their own movies into English-language versions. Sebastián Lelio turned Gloria into Gloria Bell, Georges Sluizer remade 1989’s The Vanishing into the 1993 version, and Michael Haneke turned the German Funny Games into an American one. Each director has different reasons for doing this, so what were Gabizon’s?

“First of all, it’s a great adventure,” said Gabizon, “to do a film twice. It’s an adventure, because you can fix things that you didn’t succeed at in the first one, you can do it in the second one. And there are some that I did change, but I think that the most important change was something in the DNA, something deep in the DNA of this film. [The Israeli version] wasn’t comedy, but it was more comedy than the American one and less moving. I mean, it’s less emotional.” He elaborated:

”
The American one, it is a more emotional film than the Israeli one
, a lot more. And it happened in a magical way. I mean, it’s not something that I decided, ‘Let’s do it more emotional.’ No, it’s because the actors take it more to an emotional place. And it’s something in the culture, you know, that I think it’s easier to digest the emotion in this story than the comedy in this story. Although there is, if you see the film, even the American one, you can see the comic part in the DNA of this film. I mean, it’s not totally deleted, but it has a different role.”

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“The beautiful thing that happened,” continued Gabizon, “is that it’s more easy to identify with this character, which is very hard. It’s a very challenging character. You know, at the first scene, when his ex-girlfriend tells him about the boy, the first thing he does, he calls his lawyer. Yes, it’s a very low step to begin with for a character. And Richard Gere did it and did it wonderfully. I mean, they identify with him at the end, but his journey begins very low, and it’s very hard to begin in this way, but it takes us [on] a more, I think, emotional journey.”

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Richard Gere Takes Longing to America

Longing has one of Richard Gere’s best performances of the past two decades, thanks to the extremely complicated and sometimes downright odd choices his character makes along the road of grief. Gere is obviously committed to the film in a personal way, and that took shape behind the scenes as well. “I must tell you that Richard is my partner. I mean, he is the first one that began the journey with me,” said Gabizon. He explained:

“We had a lot of meetings together, Zoom meetings — you know, I’m in Israel, he is in New York. And talking about the character, talking about the scenes, he also helped me in the transition of the film from Israeli culture to American culture, because every scene we talked about [whether] it can be exactly like this in America, and if not, what should we change? I mean, we did it together.”

“And later, we added Oren Moverman, an American director who’s a friend of Richard, and he talks Hebrew, so it’s very easy to communicate,” added Gabizon. “And he also helped me to make this translation, to change the culture codes in the film to an American culture. And if I needed to summarize the changes, [I’d say] it’s a bit more subtle and less direct. People in America, characters in America, talk more subtly and less direct. So I’d need to change it to this kind of dialogue. But, I must say, it’s not a lot of change, not a lot. The adjustment was really in a touch, in culture. I don’t mean about the emotional [changes] which we talked about before, which was really a huge change, I think.”

Whatever the changes, the Richard Gere-led Longing is a gift of sorts to Western audiences who have been unable to see the 2017 film, and who now have this unique drama to meditate on. Longing will release in select theaters on June 7, 2024 & VOD on June 28, 2024.