1983 Terms of Endearment

1983 Terms of Endearment


Classic tearjerker.  I hadn't seen it in years and years, so I just watched it again last night.

So so sad.  This is a hard review to write.

The movie is about a mother and a daughter, Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Debra Winger).  It explores their volatile but loving relationship.  Though they often have disagreements, usually brought on by Aurora critiquing Emma's choices, they also have a very deep connection.  Even when they are angry with each other, they still love each other, and talk on the phone constantly.  They share a special bond.  It's humorous listening to them talk on the phone, and seeing how, even underneath their apparent anger (for example, after Aurora doesn't attend Emma's wedding because she doesn't approve of Flap, the groom), they are friends.  Emma: "Leave me alone.  I'm happy.  I don't want to talk to you.  No.  Did you see the tablecloth Rosie gave me?   It's beautiful.  It's got red flowers on it.  She made it.  No, not yet.  Home-made omelets.  Just ordered 'em.  Kinda Tex-Mex.  No.  That was the worst thing you've ever done to me, Mother!  Well, I think you owe my husband an apology.  Until you apologize, I'm not listening to your gossip."

Aurora is a truly neurotic woman.  She nitpicks everyone, especially Emma, and she seems to have become very uptight and sexually repressed since the death of her husband when Emma was young.  She finally begins to open up when she hesitantly decides to pursue a relationship with her wild next door neighbor, Garrett (Jack Nicholson), a former astronaut who likes to drink and date younger women:

Aurora: Garrett!  What is it that makes you so insistent on shocking and insulting me?  I mean, I really hate that way of talking.  You must know this.  Why do you do it?
Garrett: I'll tell you, Aurora.  I don't know what it is about you, but you do bring out the devil in me. 

He's good for her, even though he makes it clear he's not the monogamous, settling down type.

Emma's relationship with her husband Flap is also rather unpredictable.  For example, they have a fight one morning because she wants to do the deed before he goes to work:

Flap: I have papers to grade.  This isn't love, it's selfishness
Emma: It's been a week since we've been together.  We've never gone a whole week, Flap.
Flap: Sure, we've gone a week.
Emma: Only in the real pregnant months.  You're always getting home so late, Flap. Oh, forget it.  Forget it!  Do me a favor.  Don't make me feel silly, I won't make you feel guilty.



A few minutes later, he runs back in the door:

Emma: I love that you came back.  You're saving our lives by doing this.  I love that you came back, Flap, I love it!
Flap: Let's hurry.  I've got to grade those papers.  I'll give everybody
a B!

She passionately loves him, but financial struggles, raising three children, Flap's long work hours, and eventual infidelity on both sides cause massive friction.  They have screaming fights that are naturally very upsetting to her two oldest children, Teddy and Tommy.  Through it all, they do seem to still love each other.  Emma is really a charming person in her own way, despite her tendency to lose her temper and chastise, much like her mother, and I think Debra Messing was great.  She is plain-spoken, funny, loving and brave.  She is quick to anger and quick to forgive, again like her mother.

There is a supermarket scene that sticks out in my mind, in which she gets to the register and is a few dollars short on cash, so she has to put some items back.  Her oldest son is embarrassed, and I'm sure she is too.  This is not helped by the bitchy checker rolling her eyes, calling to her manager so the whole store hears what's happening, and just generally acting rude and exasperated.  Emma calls her on it, asking, "Why do you have to be so damn nasty?  It's not going to help anything.  We're both people, you know?"

Luckily, a man from the bank, Sam Burns, steps in and helps out (which later leads to an affair), loaning her some money for the difference and chastising the checker:

Sam Burns: You're a very rude young woman.  I know Douglas from the Rotary and I can't believe he'd want you treating customers so badly.
Checkout Girl: I don't think I was treating her badly.
Sam Burns: Then you must be from New York.
 
The real meat of the movie is when Emma is diagnosed with cancer.  Her mother rushes to her side to care for her, and stays by her practically night and day when they realize that she is not going to recover.  Aurora stays calm in front of her daughter, but she is devastated and terrified, which is apparent when she becomes hysterical with a nurse who is dawdling when it is time for Emma's pain killers.  She screams, "It's past ten.  My daughter is in pain.  I don't understand why she has to have this pain.  All she has to do is hold out until ten, and IT'S PAST TEN!  My daughter is in pain, can't you understand that!  GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!"

Emma stays strong for her family and friends as she says her last goodbyes.  She tells Flap that they have both done bad things to each other, but that none of those things matter now, and she is happy that he is with her.  She chooses not to tell him about her infidelity, recognizing, I think, that it will serve no purpose.  Flap is clearly distraught at the realization that she is going to die.  He feels guilty, and sad at the realization that he will not be able to handle the kids on his own, and they decide that Aurora will raise them.  He regrets that he didn't do more to make Emma happy, when he sees the joy on her face as she notices he is wearing the tie she bought him when they were first married:

Flap: Do you know how much I hate the idea of losing you?
Emma: Yes.
Flap: Well, nobody...Nobody seems to know that except you.  I...Well...
Emma: What?
Flap: I'm thinking about my identity, and not having one any more.  Who am I, if I'm not the man who's failing Emma?
Emma: You didn't fail me, Flap.
Flap: I don't wanna discuss it.  I feel like I'm sucking after forgiveness, which I probably am.
Emma: You were no more terrible than I was.
Flap: Except for the cheating.
Emma: You're right.  Let's not do this.  Look, we had problems.  It was never over whether we loved each other.  Oh, God!  That tie!  I can't believe you wore that! The mess it must've been finding it.
Flap: The house still isn't in one piece.  It was in the last box I looked in.
Emma: I'll bet.
Flap: God, you're easy to please.  I don't know why I couldn't do more of it.
Emma: I'm so glad we're talking, I just am.  It just means so much to me that we can still feel like this, so much.

One of the hardest scenes in the movie is when she calls her sons in to say goodbye to them.  She is very sick, and looks it, so she has had her friend do her makeup so that she'll look better for them, but when she looks in the mirror she knows it is too much and isn't working, and wipes some off.  Her oldest son is angry and hostile, and she tells him not to feel guilty about this in the future: "I know you like me.  I know it.  For the last year or two, you've been pretending like you hate me.  I love you very much.  I love you as much as I love anybody, as much as I love myself.  And in a few years when I haven't been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you could...remember that time that I bought you the baseball glove when you thought we were too broke.  You know?  Or when I read you those stories?  Or when I let you goof off instead of mowing the lawn?   Lots of things like that.  And you're gonna realize that you love me.  And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me.  But don't -I know that you love me.  So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?"  It's heartbreaking when the boys leave, and you know that it is the last time they will see other.  She kisses them both, and tells them, trying to sound upbeat, "I was so scared, but I think it went well, don't you?"  Her youngest boy's face as he gives her one last look from the doorway with tears streaming down his cheeks had me in tears.



Emma passes away as Flap and Aurora sit in chairs next to her bed.  Aurora is gasping with the pain of losing her beloved daughter, and clings to Flap, despite their history of never getting along, saying, "Oh, God, I'm so stupid.  So stupid...Somehow I thought...Somehow I thought when she finally went, that it would be a relief.  Oh, my sweet, little darling!   Oh, dear.  There's nothing harder.  There's nothing..."  I instantly thought back to the beginning of the movie, when Emma is a baby, and Aurora climbs into her crib to pinch her, terrified that she will die of "crib death."  And the scene after that when Emma is a child, and her father has passed away, and Aurora goes to sleep with her in her bed, because she needs her daughter's comforting presence, and the two just hold each other:

Aurora: Emma?  Emma, wake up, please.  Wake up.
Emma: What's wrong?
Aurora: I was tense and I was wondering how you were feeling.  Would you like to sleep in my bed?
Emma: No, thank you.  Would you like to sleep in my bed again?
Aurora: Yes.

She loved her daughter so much, from the very beginning -they loved each other.  It was just devastating.  I was a mess of tears, and had to hug my Amelia.  Then I gave her a lollipop I had earlier said she couldn't have because she'd already had a piece of candy.

A very moving film about relationships over time, especially that between mother and daughter.  Love and loss.  It has always made me cry, but it was even worse this time now that I have kids.  I doubt I'll watch it again.  Too upsetting.  The music is great -I used to play it on the piano.

There was a terrible sequel -definitely skip that one.

Oh, and it must be said: What the hell kind of name is Flap?