Review of Terms of Endearment (1983) by Kelly C — 09 Jun 2011

I'll give it 3 stars for entertainment, because I was invested in the characters and anxious to see what would happen to them...but the story meandered and I just kept asking myself why they threw certain plot elements into play.

However, real life has a lot of plot elements that don't contribute to the whole in an interesting way, too. I could have done without the soapy melodramatics of the affairs with characters so boring they make Ben Stein seem exciting.

The relationship between Jeff Daniels and Debra Winger's characters starts off believable...but at the end, it's a hypocritical melodramatic mess. Yes, a few tears were shed, but for the most part the only believable character was Shirley MacLaine's slightly narcissistic mother and the child actors who play Emma's children.

Mind you, I had heard this movie was about an EVIL mother. It's really not. MacLaine is an ice queen, but a loving ice queen. If you want to invest the slightly long running time in this, make sure you see it just for MacLaine's performance, Debra Winger's lovable rasp.

..and Nicholson playing the smirking creep, of course. It's a character-driven movie built on cliches that crumble by the end of the film, but it's an entertaining couple of hours at best.