Endearing terms

When Shirley MacLaine got a day in TCM's Summer Under the Stars this year, one of the movies TCM ran was Terms of Endearment. Not having blogged about it here before, I finally sat down to watch it and do a post here.

Shirley plays Aurora Greenway, a new mother in Houston TX some decades back with a young daughter Emma. She's extremely protective of Emma, getting up in the middle of the night just to make certain the baby is breathing. Some years pass, and Aurora's husband dies. Aurora offers to comfort Emma by letting Emma sleep with her, but Emma doesn't need that. So Aurora gets into Emma's bed! Like I said, she's overprotective.

More time passesand we see a near-adult Emma with her friend Patsy (Lisa Hart Carroll), and finally, about to get married to Flap (Jeff Daniels), who is looking to start a career as a college English professor, something that's going to take a lot of struggle. Mom is none too certain that Flap is right for her daughter, to the point that Mom is willing to skip the wedding to protest.

So as we can see there are any number of complicated emotions between mother and daughter. However, they still get along well enough to call each other on the phone all the time, as they discuss Emma's path through life. First it involves her getting pregnant with her first son, followed by an event that's sure to be traumatic for Mom: Flap has gotten a job that might be tenure-track, but it's up in Des Moines, IA, a good 15-hour drive away if not more. Mom's going to be left all alone!

Well, not quite. Mom has a few friends in a doctor as well as Vern (Danny DeVito). There's also the next-door neighbor, astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). He's a bit of a hard liver, constantly coming home with young women. One day he offers to take Aurora out to lunch, but she politely declines. Now that Emma is going off to Iowa, however, Aurora is thinking of finally taking Garrett up on that offer.

Life continues to go on for the two women, as Aurora and Garrett have an on-again, off-again relationship, while Emma has a second son, followed by a daughter, and figures that Flip might actually be cheating on her. As a result of that, when she makes the acquaintance of local banker Sam (John Lithgow), she decides to have an affair of her own.

Through it all, mother and daughter keep up their long-distance phone relationship, until a sudden change when Emma is diagnosed with cancer. Aurora goes up north to take care of the children, and possibly even take custody, while Flap is faced with the big choice of what he wants to do in life.

The idea of Terms of Endearment is quite a good one, and I found it interesting that it's based on a book by Larry McMurtry, since this is the sort of material you'd expect to have "chick flick" written all over. To be fair, that is at least somewhat the case, and any guy who prefers action movies to straight-up dramas may find this movie a bit tough to get through, especially in the last half-hour or so once Emma is diagnosed with cancer.

However, the performances are quite good, with Nicholson taking a step down and winning a Supporting Actor Oscar. MacLaine won the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Winger, as she gives an excellent portray of a mother who is at times obnoxiously overbearing. That having been said, some people might find the character a bit too overbearing; I know I wanted to shake some sense into her once or twice. Jeff Daniels is good in another dramatic role, although I'd mentioned that once before regarding Marie: A True Story. DeVito doesn't have much to do despite fourth billing, while Lithgow is surprisingly good in a drama, getting his second straight Oscar nomination.

Terms of Endearment may not be everybody's cup of tea, and I'm not certain if it deserved to win Best Picture -- I think I'd pick The Dresser. But it's certainly a fine movie worthy of seeing.