75
San Francisco Chronicle by David Lewis
A formidable exercise in storytelling. Even at the end, when the inevitable goodbye toast occurs, there is a twist awaiting us.
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What are critics saying?
70
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
Ultimately, even if some secondary characters and plotlines are underserved, the strength of the story and the emotional range of the experiences depicted prevail.
70
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
Bye Bye Germany is a deeply felt yet unsentimental, often wry look at a group of Jewish friends — all Nazi-era survivors — who, in 1946 Frankfurt, unite to sell high-end linens to raise the funds to emigrate to America. Not your typical Holocaust-inspired drama.
50
There’s a storybook complacency to Garbarski’s filmmaking (indeed the literal translation of the German title is “Once Upon a Time in Germany”) that gives us the impression that all this is snow-globe history, put away behind glass on a shelf somewhere.
70
The story digs deep enough that the cheese Garbarski lays on at the end feels well-earned. It’s a charmingly made film.
70
Screen International by Lee Marshall
A little too jaunty and picaresque at times, Bye Bye Germany is nevertheless, when it hits its stride, an entertaining, watchable take on the oppressed-minority-comeback genre (“We’re the Jewish revenge”, as one of the salesmen bitterly quips), shadowed at every turn by an unspeakable horror.