Very well executed

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Excellent movie and one of the better love stories I have seen. What made the movie so engaging was the terrific acting of the two leads. Tom Hanks and the lovely Spanish actress Cristina Marsillach. There was real chemistry between the two actor/actress and their passionate love affair overcame everything in the end. Even though its set in WW2 we don't see anything of the fighting of WW2. Except a story about a strong love affair by two people in a time of war. To make this a very enjoyable movie to watch. A forgotten gem from the 1980s, which I first came across back in the 1990s. Definitely 2 hours well spent if anything just for watching Tom Hanks and Christina Marsillach at their best on screen.

This movie is not for everyone. However, I think it's a nice attempt at a WWII Casablanca type of plot. Casablanca was a bit like capturing lightening in a bottle, not easy to do. This movie manages it, I think.I enjoyed this movie for a variety of reasons. A young Tom Hanks holds up his end. Not easy to do in this case - he has to believably play an American who went off to join the RAF before America became involved in WWII. If he isn't able to do this, the movie falls apart. Of course it has to be an American because that's the target audience, and that's part of the Casablanca meme.Here's what I like about the movie: First: It shows you a little window into the Ladino world. It's interesting. Some people find it was harsh. But my father grew up in an ethnically German family in Chicago and he still remembers his father slapping his sister for having gone on a date with a boy of Italian descent. My brother married a Jewish girl and I don't think his in-laws ever got over the fact he wasn't Jewish. So the movie captures the times well: old cultures colliding with a new era of integration that would really pick up steam once the war ends.Second: Jerusalem has been the center of a political storm ever since the end of World War II. But here we get to view and imagine Jerusalem as a peaceful back drop, where Hanks and other units go to convalesce, from the rest of the world that is waging in a world at war. To me, its a bit bizarre and serine and I really value the aspect of viewing Jerusalem that way. I can't imagine it that way now, but this movie allows me to imagine it that way back in the days it portrays.Like Casablanca, it takes place in a similar climate, in a similar place, just collateral to the world at war, and like Casablanca the source of the tension is the constraints placed upon a true love relationship, like Casablanca, the movie ends at a scene in an airport where two lovers must be separated.Better than Casablanca, the chemistry between Hanks and Marsillach over Bogart/Bergman (I think this is because Marsillach was husbanding some kind of internal tension at the time, and tension contributes to chemistry). Better than Casablanca the props, surrounding cast members and their roles (with important exceptions to Claude Rains and company, I'm talking about the non-character actors in Casablanca) and the setting. Unlike Casablanca, the plane taking off and the airport are all real, the city and the settings all look real as they are really in Jerusalem, not a Hollywood lot. Unfortunately the only fighter plane they used is a lone P-51d (or later version). The RAF wouldn't have flown those in the first half of 1942, and especially not in the Middle East (the Israeli Airforce had them, though, later on). That theatre was dominated by Hawker Hurricanes of Battle of Britain fame. I know I'm being picky here. Unlike Casablanca, the ending is hopeful for the relationship, but ambiguous. We don't know what will happen to the couple, but we do know to what course they have committed each other too.For some reason, I would have liked more back story... Hanks decision to leave Missoula Montana, when and how he went about that, crossing into Canada and signing up, then off to war. Where though? England first? Battle of Britain? Then I'd like to have seen post story plot as well. Where does Hanks character end up? How does he end up? What's Marsillach's character's life like while he's away? How does she break her engagement with her cousin? What does she tell here parents and family and how does she cope with the intervening year? When and how does Hanks make his way back? Do they stay in Israel? If so does he join up with the Israeli Air Force? Where do they go after the war? America? Britain? Canada? What happens with the relationship and how do they make their way? Its a low budget movie. They did quite well with it, all things considered. I just would love the makers to redo it as a mini series or something. I would prefer, however, that they choose to leave Jerusalem and move to a land where there is little conflict. I could see them moving to Los Angeles, and Hanks getting a job in the aircraft industry there. The climate would be similar to Jerusalem's and there's sizeable Jewish communities there, many of which are familiar with the integration issues and so I think that would create the best spot. And for the next 50 years of their lives things would be peaceful. Eventually Sarah's family comes to visit. Perhaps they immigrate too, to get away from the conflicts in the Middle East, provide more opportunities for their large family, and be closer to their daughter. Well, there, I guess I just wrote my own sequel. The major theme being, after a world at war, a war fought mainly over nationalism, they retreat into peace, prosperity, integration and pluralism. I'm sorry for the conflict in the Middle East and Jerusalem particularly. The fact that Jerusalem is cast as a peaceful, restful backward to a world at war is what makes this movie so compelling.

I saw "Everytime We Say Goodbye" in 1986 at a small local theater in Miami. It is the only movie I've ever walked out of. And that's saying something.The film begins promisingly with a unique setting: it's one of the few movies I've ever heard of that take place in Palestine during the Mandate period. Unfortunately it quickly turns into a hack-eyed love story. The last part of the plot with has developments that are so unbelievable they would make "Sunset Beach" blush. I walked out before they got worse.Tom Hanks and the leading lady perform well with what they are given. It's a shame that great locations and good actors are let down so badly by somebody's notion of a heart rending love story. Mind rending is what it becomes to the audience.

I saw this while flipping channels and stopping on the local Canadian broadcast. It's not the best project Tom Hanks has ever been in, but the character is much more subdued than others he was playing at the time - it gave insight to the "serious" actor that Hanks was evolving to become.The most fascinating part of the film is the look at the world of the Ladinos - Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Reconquest ending in 1492 and who retain the language and cultural traditions that they had in Spain centuries later. Although some may raise an eyebrow about a film that takes place during WWII centering around Jewish people, and there's not even a mention of the ongoing Holocaust, to me, this underscores the inertia of human relations, that even when the entire planet is in the midst of war, and the fate of an entire people is at stake, we still have a tendency to cling to our differences.