Terms of Endearment

Terms of Endearment; drama, USA, 1983; D: James L. Brooks, S: Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Lisa Hart Carroll, John Lithgow, Danny DeVito, Troy Bishop, Huckleberry Fox

 
The story follows 30 years of one suburban Texas family: Aurora is a rebellious woman who gets a daughter, Emma. When Emma grows up, she marries the teacher Flap and leaves the widowed Aurora all alone in the house. When Emma gets three children, Aurora isn't very happy with her role as grandmother and starts a relationship with a neighbor Garrett, a former astronaut. Emma then splits up with Flap and goes to live with Aurora, but gets cancer and dies. Aurora is left alone with Emma's kids, and Garrett.

As he did with numerous movies after this one, director James L. Brooks proved with "Terms of Endearment" that sometimes family moments can be more fierce than some crime films. That excellent, truly tight quality humorous drama is a very emotionally gripping piece of cinema, much more clever than some critics who dismissed it as a soap opera would like to admit it since it's an eccentric and very unusual film. It is not magnificent, nor glamorous or "cool", but on the contrary, very realistic, down to earth, unglamorous and funny. James L. Brooks is, sadly, neglected among the directors of his generation, but he always showed an admiring trend of humanity and sympathy for losers in his films, and one of the reasons why "Terms" are so appealing is the fact that everyone can identify himself or herself with imperfect characters on the screen. When he creates a character, that character stays in your mind. Likewise, there are also some clever directorial interventions: for instance, some 61 minutes into the film, there is an elegant match cut from Garrett entering the car on the beach about to shut the car door, to Sam actually shutting the car door in another sequence, as he exits with Emma.

For its time, the film contains some unusual descriptions, character observations and excellent dialogues ("The only school that would accept Flap for his associate professorship is in Des Moines," confesses Emma, causing her mother to reply with: "He can't even do the simple things, like fail locally"). In her back yard, Aurora hears Garrett (excellent Jack Nicholson in a refreshingly fragile performance) humorously shrieking and howling while taking a cold shower in his home. During dinner, a suitor (Danny De Vito) pretends he is chewing, puts his hand in front of his mouth, Aurora turns her head away in disgust, and then he opens the hand in front of her face, yet the hand is empty, joking: "I just wanted to make you laugh". Emma and Flap make up, go upstairs to make love, while the kid takes his jacket and already knows he must go outside and sit on the porch while their parents are "intimate". At a party, a friend tells Emma she knows she has cancer, while another woman sitting on the opposite of them is so surprised she spits out an olive from her drink, which lands exactly on Emma's lap. The only big misstep is the terminal illness finale which is too melodramatic and syrupy, and the movie falls into the soap opera trap in that segment, instead of being more restrained and measured, which would have been more effective. It feels strangely uneven, wrecking the balance of the narrative. Nontheless, overall this is a very refreshing and touching drama about compassion and the chaos of life, whereas these characters' little interactions and gestures are able to carry the entire film because all of them ring true.

Grade:+++