Taking Off

In the late 1960s, a young woman named Jeannie flees the suburbs for New York City with the dream of becoming a singer, eventually joining a group of hippies and bohemians. Meanwhile, her parents embark on a search marked by tragicomic situations and, along the way, meet a group of other parents of missing youths who are trying to understand their children and the generational conflict of the era. Amid unlikely encounters, drug experiments, and family misunderstandings, this comedy portrays adults at a loss in the face of a youth that rejects conservatism and the compromises of everyday life. Punctuated by musical auditions—featuring brief appearances by Kathy Bates (as Bobo Bates) and Carly Simson—this was Forman’s first American film.