Review of Taking Off (1971) by Jake C — 06 Jun 2018

Uproariously funny send up of post-60s hippies (and their parents) that really takes the piss out of both the counterculture and the counter-counterculture. The scene where the forlorn adults try pot for the first time in order to relate to their wayward kids is high(brow), slow-burning farce at its best.

Even as the airy ideals of youth get the rug ruthlessly pulled out from underneath them-just by letting them be themselves, performing songs and acting goofy-it's really the parents who turn out to be the punchline (literally, in the case of a scene with Buck Henry getting drunk and violent), their repression exposed, their desire humiliated.