Hard Goodbyes: My Father

Name: Hard Goodbyes: My Father
Genre: Drama
Released: September 16, 2005
Duration: 113 min
Rating: 66

2005

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Release Date: September 16, 2005

Summary: 10-year-old Elias, a boy living in Athens, makes a pact with his father to watch on television man's first landing on the moon. The two regale each other with stories of Jules Verne and flights of the imagination. They are adventurers and explorers. But chocolate bars left by a father gone on too many business trips are counted, while10-year-old Elias, a boy living in Athens, makes a pact with his father to watch on television man's first landing on the moon. The two regale each other with stories of Jules Verne and flights of the imagination. They are adventurers and explorers. But chocolate bars left by a father gone on too many business trips are counted, while the countdown to the moonlanding has already begun. The year is 1969. A spaceship takes off, and man soon takes leave of planet earth. And so does Elias' father. It is the imagination and their shared love of storytelling that allow Elias to transcend the unimaginable. (Sipapu Films)… Expand

Director: Penny Panayotopoulou

Genre(s): Drama

Runtime: 113 min

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Critic Reviews

Mark Sells

Part of what makes the film engaging is the carefully nuanced performances Panayotopoulou gets from her actors. In particular, Giorgos Karayannis. Read full review

Bill White

Panayotopoulou casts a transcendent eye upon her downbeat subject matter, never dodging the unsentimental truth that growing up is about learning to live with the loss of those things we have loved. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Like the moving 1999 American "A Walk on the Moon," with Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen, Hard Goodbyes juxtaposes a family crisis with the excitement of the period before and during Neil Armstrong's 1969 moonwalk. Read full review

Bernard Besserglik

A tender and moving drama that deserves wider exposure. Read full review

Laura Kern

Considering the delicate and weighty subject matter, the film's tone is surprisingly light, sometimes even humorous, which helps to balance the harsh sentiments that death inevitably brings. Read full review

Elizabeth Weitzman

Panayotopoulou does handle the material with sensitivity, but she relies too much on her young hero's unlikely precocity, which unwittingly diminishes the intensity of a child's very real grief. Read full review

John McMurtrie

A tender, gently paced coming-of-age movie whose strength is its young lead actor. Read full review

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