1983--Terms of Endearment, James L. Brooks

1983--Terms of Endearment—James L. Brooks

Nominated: The Big Chill, The Dresser, The Right Stuff, Tender Mercies

Should have won: Return of the Jedi

Be sure to see: Christine, A Christmas Story, Cujo, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Videodrome

“Impatient boys sometimes miss dessert”--Aurora Greenway

     A curious way to present a movie's title card, Terms of Endearment appears as “Terms of Endearment xxx”. I guess it is meant as triple kisses but in a way I'm pretty sure I've seen another version of that title. The film opens with a new mother who dotes on her new sleeping baby. It is clear this child will be in her mother's mind through the whole movie, and does she ever. Fast forward a to the night before the child's wedding day. The mother tells her daughter not to marry. She doesn't like her new son- in-law, and everyone knows it.

     The woman is Aurora Greenway played by Shirley MacClaine and though she is the biggest (or perhaps second biggest) actor in the movie, most of the film focuses on her daughter, Emma, her new husband Flap (yes, Flap) and their children. They all live in Houston but Flap takes a teaching job in Iowa and they move away. This causes the movie to go in many directions and introduces new characters, all of which have important things to do.

     Aurora, after fifteen years of living next to Garrett, an astronaut (the always welcomed Jack Nicholson), finally meets him socially. They had discussed going to lunch years earlier but never got around to it. Their day on the town is peppered with surprises of Garrett's personality. In the meantime, things are shaky in Iowa. The children are growing up, Emma is getting frustrated and meets another man and Flap might or might not be having an affair with a student as well. What I didn’t like is how Emma points the blame of the affair right at her husband, never suggesting that what she has been up to is wrong as well.

     Though they are states apart, Aurora and Emma stay close, having phone conversations multiple times a day. They joke about the phone bill but what I found odd about the phone conversations they do not do the typical thing movie conversions do. Both ends of the line sound clear. You know how usually the person on screen is clear but the one over the line sounds muffled? It is as though both are in the room together, like Emma never left.

     What I liked is how the movie is never stale. It doesn't follow one story for very long and then moves to the other; it weaves them in and out. Aurora and the astronaut; Emma and Flap; the kids; Flap and the student; and even Flap and his mother-in-law who makes it clear she doesn't like him. We come to care about every character, even in their faults, and then something tragic happens. At this point I forgot I was watching characters and connected with everyone as human beings.

     Terms of Endearment is not really a family movie but it is about a family. Real emotions drive it from scene to scene. Each character is likeable even when they do unlikeable things. They can be related to and everyone has something important to say.