Terms of Endearment

 

Terms of Endearment 1983

• Director: James L Brooks
• Seen by this director: As Good as It Gets
• Based on book: by Larry McMurtey
• Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Shirley MacLaine – Downton Abbey, Rumour Has It, In Her Shoes, Guarding Tess, Postcards from the Edge, Steel Magnolias, Sweet Charity, Gambit
• Debra Winger – Rachel Getting Married, Urban Cowboy
• Jack Nicholson – The Bucket List, About Schmidt, The Pledge, As Good As It Gets, Mars Attacks!, Batman, The Witches of Eastwick, Prizzi’s Honour, Reds, The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Tommy, Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Little Shop of Horrors
• Jeff Daniels– The Martian, Looper, The Lookout, Good Night and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, Imaginary Heroes, The Hours, Pleasantville, Speed, Ragtime
• John Lithgow – Interstellar, Dream Girls, Orange County, Third Rock from the Sun, Footloose, The World According to Garp, Twelfth Night
• Why?  I remember it as good.
• Seen:  Once before. Now 2 July 2023 

Aurora (MacLaine) is an overprotective, neurotic, rude, interfering, domineering and unkind mother. Her daughter Emma (Winger) is tied to her forever, even after marriage to Flap (Daniels) and moving to another state.

I don’t like these people. I don’t like the film. MacLaine is good but both she and the role in Sweet Charity are so much better. I really dislike Nicholson as the obnoxious drunken ex-astronaut, not just the character but Nicholson himself who is just playing Nicholson.

Why did I like this the first time? 

2* of 5