Friday, March 28, 2014

Movie Review: "Terms of Endearment"

I know this isn't a blues song, but I lost a bet with my movie critic friend on Facebook, Susan Wloszczyna. Therefore, here's my forfeit: a review of the spectacular movie "Terms of Endearment".

Terms of Endearment, Terms of Life
By Rainey Wetnight

“Emma, I’m totally convinced if you marry Flap Horton tomorrow, it will be a mistake of such gigantic proportions it will ruin your life and make wretched your destiny.”  --Aurora Greenway

Before the term “helicopter parent” was ever coined, Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) embodied it. She’s the type of Southern-belle suburbanite, reminiscent of a faded heroine in A Streetcar Named Desire, who longs for ambition, gentility, and a more-than-comfortable future for her exuberant daughter Emma (Debra Winger). While Emma smokes marijuana in her bridal veil, anticipating her upcoming wedding to affable, philandering Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels), Aurora has other plans. “What mother doesn’t, especially regarding a groom with a nickname like that?” one might ask. True, but Mrs. Greenway is, shall we say, different. With her immaculate garden and penchant for wearing sheer 1940’s floral prints when everyone else has moved four decades ahead, fashion-wise, it’s clear why her astronaut next-door neighbor, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson) appalls her. He’s the grinning Stanley Kowalski to her Blanche DuBois.

Thankfully for both mother and daughter, they move on in their respective relationships. Emma finds out about her husband’s eye for nubile college girls, and Aurora finds out about Garrett’s…rocket. Despite these new developments, some things never change. Flap and Emma continue to argue about money and moving, and Mrs. Greenway always manages to fit in more than a few digs at her daughter with every telephone conversation (“You have cysts because you haven’t kept yourself up, and never learned how to wash.”) Meanwhile a sinister shadow lurks beneath the surface of this family, and Emma’s skin. When the gut-wrenching revelation hits, all of their apologies and hugs seem like too little, too late. They are.

What is life? Is it something to jump into with both feet and a hotrod, as Garrett Breedlove demonstrates in the Gulf of Mexico? Is it to be approached cautiously, as Emma’s meek banker acquaintance Sam (John Lithgow) does? Is it better to know everything that’s going on with the ones you love, or to have the simple faith of Emma’s children that all will be well? Most importantly, is life something that one can control?

That is the true essence of Mrs. Greenway, and what she yearns for throughout this searingly honest film. In the end, one answer to these many questions is that sometimes, all we can do is give each other sincere love and Terms of Endearment, before we ultimately lose our chance.

RAINEY’S RATING: 4 STARS








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