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Upon Diane Kruger initially encountering the screenplay for Longing, she found it to be atypical.
The film follows Daniel (Richard Gere), an entrepreneur who discovers that he sired a son whom he never got to meet — and that the son has tragically passed away at the age of 19. Delving into his son’s existence, he examines what he can unearth about the young man’s history, especially the youth’s amorous feelings towards his educator, Alice (Kruger).
“It’s incredibly ‘out there’ yet also quite moving and poignant,” shared Kruger with Yahoo Entertainment. “I was curious to witness how [the film] would ultimately come together.”
She was equally keen to join forces with Gere once more. Their prior collaboration was in the 2007 action-comedy The Hunting Party.
“I figured it would be an enjoyable experience to spend a few days on this project and reunite with [Gere] again,” expressed Kruger. “I was mainly looking forward to some enjoyment. It’s an excellent movie that conveniently slotted into my timetable.”
In his melancholy, Daniel engages in erratic behavior. He interrogates Alice with startling inquiries, and at one juncture, hatches a plot with a couple mourning their own daughter to orchestrate a nuptial festivity for their deceased offspring (who never encountered each other) in another realm. One dreamlike segment of the movie presents Alice as an immense figure, with her stiletto heel as large as a structure.
“Honestly, it was quite bizarre,” Kruger remarked about shooting the giant sequence. “I had my foot perched on a box and it was just myself there — no one else.”
Longing is scribe-director Savi Gabizon’s North American reinterpretation of his original 2017 work from Israel. Kruger noted that it felt unique to work with a filmmaker who had a precise vision for how things should appear on the screen.
Gabizon conveyed to MovieWeb that the bereaved parents depicted in the movie experience urges that are “agonizing and ludicrous,” which are reflected in some lighter moments within the film.
A key motif in the film is that child-rearing comes with occurrences of both sorrow and ridiculousness. Daniel gleans much about his progeny in dialogues with Alice about the boy’s infatuation with her, which eventually led to his expulsion.
“We tend to view children as impeccable cherubs,” Kruger reflected. “Yet we must navigate through tortuous paths of affections and sentiments. They might be our offspring but they possess their own distinct traits.”
In the end, Kruger’s aspiration is for the motion picture to inspire audiences to “capitalize on every scenario.”
“It’s purely imaginative. … It transports viewers on a journey,” she declared. “I cannot assert there’s an explicit message, but certainly, the film prompts contemplation regarding life.”
Longing premieres in theaters on June 7 and will be accessible on video-on-demand services June 28.
