Let's All Just Meet at Breakheart Pass
Terms of Endearment (1983)
directed by James L. Brooks
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
There's a funny story that led me to the doorstep of this little tear-jerker. It's a tale about a child who liked to watch movies but couldn't find common cinematic ground with his parents, who had of course been watching movies since long before I was born. Well-intentioned recommendations in either direction were met with befuddlement, except where Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland were concerned. In the end, I embraced the happy imperialism of The Wind and the Lion and somehow my folks loved Mulholland Dr.. It's a truce Aurora would be proud of.
When the Terms tip came over the wire, I bit, but I in no way condone plotlines in which a cheating spouse (the oddly ageless Jeff Daniels) has to watch his wife die of cancer, be it in Houston, Nebraska, or anywhere. Through a generous and condescending lens, I can see what Terms of Endearment might have looked like in 1983: tough but romantic, complicated and sometimes sweet. A "smart" film about flawed people full of messy emotions - probably exactly what As Good As It Gets looked like to me when I was 17.
I will say that we can probably agree on Aurora and Emma's cohorts and suitors: Vernon, Garrett, and Sam. Great names, great faces, and each of them more than matched by two women who, under different circumstances, wouldn't have been asked to act around that great big terminal elephant in the room. Then again, when I told my parents I'd "finally watched Terms of Endearment," neither one of them could remember telling me I should.
directed by James L. Brooks
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
There's a funny story that led me to the doorstep of this little tear-jerker. It's a tale about a child who liked to watch movies but couldn't find common cinematic ground with his parents, who had of course been watching movies since long before I was born. Well-intentioned recommendations in either direction were met with befuddlement, except where Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland were concerned. In the end, I embraced the happy imperialism of The Wind and the Lion and somehow my folks loved Mulholland Dr.. It's a truce Aurora would be proud of.
When the Terms tip came over the wire, I bit, but I in no way condone plotlines in which a cheating spouse (the oddly ageless Jeff Daniels) has to watch his wife die of cancer, be it in Houston, Nebraska, or anywhere. Through a generous and condescending lens, I can see what Terms of Endearment might have looked like in 1983: tough but romantic, complicated and sometimes sweet. A "smart" film about flawed people full of messy emotions - probably exactly what As Good As It Gets looked like to me when I was 17.
I will say that we can probably agree on Aurora and Emma's cohorts and suitors: Vernon, Garrett, and Sam. Great names, great faces, and each of them more than matched by two women who, under different circumstances, wouldn't have been asked to act around that great big terminal elephant in the room. Then again, when I told my parents I'd "finally watched Terms of Endearment," neither one of them could remember telling me I should.
posted by NPK at 6:14 AM
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