Best Picture of the Year?: Terms of Endearment

Paramount; produced and directed by James L. Brooks

French director Francois Truffant once stated half in jest that a train would be the ideal place to stage a movie—the forward locomotion being akin to the movement of film through a projector. Indeed, the entire film-going experience can be likened to a journey by rail; we become passive spectators of a vast and varied human landscape—with our own reflection occasionally superimposed on the scene.

Terms of Endearment has all the right ingredients for a marvelous excursion, with its boxcar of eccentric characters pulled along by some fine acting and snappy dialogue. But once the destination is reached, you have to ask yourself whether the trip was necessary. In this particular instance, when all is cinematically said and done, the inevitable question must be: Is this all there is?

Inexplicably hailed by many critics as the year’s best picture, Terms is surprisingly drab. The ambitious plot attempts to cover too much territory in too little time with the overall effect of emotionally flattening both the characters and our reactions to them. Writer/director James L. Brooks has adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel this story of the stormy relationship between an overbearing mother (Shirley MacLaine) and her easygoing daughter (Debbie Winger). The film covers several decades in their lives, from one death to another, with a series of extended vignettes that would serve, in another movie, as mere introduction. Brooks, however, hangs the whole project on this one technique. That our fondness for these wacky Texans remains so strong is a tribute to the fine acting of MacLaine, Winger, and Jack Nicholson (a sleazy ex-astronaut). Their performances are controlled and natural. Anyone who has grown up within a family will recognize Winger’s amused tolerance for her mother’s behavior: impatience tempered by years of love and devotion. Their relationship rings true, but one yearns, throughout the film, for the kind of intimate identification that good drama can so easily evoke. Yet, even in the terrible climactic moment of separation, we simply acknowledge the truth of the emotions without experiencing the reality.

Terms of Endearment never achieves the quiet dignity of last year’s stunning Tender Mercies, though their themes are similar. The concepts of grace under pressure, personal change, even common self-doubt, have eluded Brooks and his dramatic offspring. Ultimately, our shallow affection for his characters, our lack of real feeling for their plight, can only be attributed to our profound belief that life—and the giver and taker of life—demands transformation and a sense of meaning even in fictional people. Their drudging immorality and passive march toward death are, quite simply, unendearing and unendurable. At the end, one is left with the distinct impression that MacLaine and company haven’t come to terms with anything at all.

Reviewed by Harry Cheney, a writer living in Southern California.

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