One can’t help but admire Terms of Endearment 4K, a movie made by Hollywood’s savviest pros — everything about it is how A- Grade production is supposed to work. Adapting a book by a noted author, a talent writer-director makes a big leap from TV to film. The cast that signs on gets immediate industry attention. Despite some on-set blowups, the three big stars work beautifully together, each channeling their inner selves while staying true to their characterizations. The film is made without undo strife or scandal. When it shows up, EVERYBODY likes it. Audiences are caught up in the lives of the people on screen. Acclaim follows shortly thereafter, awards fall like tenpins, and it’s lauded as one of the best of the decade.
By all outward appearances, writer-director-producer James L. Brooks is that rarity, an elegant Hollywood success. A TV legend from the 1970s, he generated an enormous volume of entertainment, but has signed his name as director only a few times. Two of his directed features repeated the success of Terms of Endearment, 1987’s Broadcast News and 1997’s As Good as It Gets, dramas that connect strongly with the audience. Nobody seems to remember Brooks’ lesser output, only the legendary hits. He was an executive producer & writer on TV’s The Tracey Ullman Show, which begat the animated The Simpsons, now in its (cough) 34th year on the air.
The movie is another success milestone for the noted author Larry McMurtry. Starting with 1963’s Hud, film and TV adaptations of his Texas-centric novels never went away, especially his Lonesome Dove cycle. Terms of Endearment is an intimate family drama in a non-rustic setting. The focus is on the mother-daughter bond. It has the qualities of a soap opera, without prejudice. We like everyone we meet in this thing.
“You are not special enough to overcome a bad marriage.”
The main narrative spans perhaps 12 years. In an upscale suburb of Houston, widowed Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) fends off a potential suitor or two while trying her utmost to get her flighty, equally stubborn daughter Emma (Debra Winger) to follow her advice. Desperate to get away from the domineering Aurora, Emma marries the penniless, carefree English college instructor Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels). When Aurora finally realizes that the wedding is for real, she refuses to attend. Emma’s reckless determination impresses even her best friend Patsy Clark (Lisa Hart Carroll).
Although each considers the other an interfering royal pain, Aurora and Emma remain in close contact through constant phone calls. Time passes quickly. Emma has children and moves with Flap to a teaching job in Iowa. By the time Emma’s oldest is eleven or so, her marriage is showing stress. Money is always tight. Flap isn’t close to his kids, and Emma suspects that he has affairs with his students. She has an affair of her own with Sam Burns (John Lithgow), a kind man that she meets at the supermarket. Back in Houston, Aurora commences a +50 fling with her nextdoor neighbor, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). Aurora is surprised with herself, as she’s been criticizing Garrett’s drunken womanizing for years. Aurora and Emma’s ‘abrasive bond’ becomes even closer with these developments. When a health issue arises that can’t be ignored, the mother / daughter relationship evolves once again.
Top-billed Debra Winger was the big draw for Terms, after the smash success of just two movies, Urban Cowboy and An Officer and a Gentleman. With her low voice and impulsive personality, Winger convinced audiences that she was real — her characters betrayed little or no signs of standard ‘acting.’ A generation of women accepted her as a non-standard screen mate for both John Travolta and Richard Gere. There’s something credible about Emma’s marriage to Jeff Daniel’s Flap, even if the matrimonial arrangement always has an improvised, tentative quality: ‘this is working for now.’ The very good Daniels plays Flap as always slightly disengaged, with his main focus not on his household.
“Why should I be upset about being A GRANDMOTHER?!”
Almost thirty years into her bright career, Shirley MacLaine had maintained a star image even if only a few of her movies approached the success and acclaim of her two with Billy Wilder, like the highly profitable Irma La Douce. In the years before Terms she scored a few decent hits and the solid winner The Turning Point (1977) with Anne Bancroft. MacLaine is one of the few Hollywood actresses who shifted into middle-aged roles without necessarily becoming desexualized. She had proven her fearlessness in that department in 1979’s Being There, vamping a strip seduction scene. Her Aurora Greenway demonstrates some nimble romantic moves, including bedroom scenes, at age 49.
Moviegoers have relished romantic personality clashes ever since the days of Gable & Lombard. They surely anticipated sparks flying with this first team-up of the feisty MacLaine and the ‘bad boy’ Jack. Nicholson is technically doing special support duty on Terms. He’s just three years younger than MacLaine but achieved stardom much later than she. This may be the first show in which Jack lets his age show, with a serious paunch appropriate to the character. Grooming his image as an unpredictable mischief-maker, Nicholson kept his romantic flag flying much longer, coming back for Brooks in the unexpected winner As Good as It Gets.
The main storyline is the Mother-daughter ups and downs, but audiences had even more fun watching the clash between MacLaine’s ever-wary Aurora and Nicholson’s wild card neighbor. Their ‘first date’ is delayed by years, only for both parties to find each other to be delightful company. There are no easy formulas like ‘opposites attract’ — what seems to matter is chemistry, fate, and an individual’s desire to find someone compatible.
“Mama, that’s the first time I stopped hugging first — I like that.”
The unpretentious non-message of all the relationship squabbles and naughty fun may be hidden in the story’s given title — unlikely couples get together all the time, but every pairing has to work its way through some basic ground rules. A loving relationship can have a lot of wiggle room. Neither Flap nor Emma would call themselves pillars of fidelity, and Emma would probably laugh at the suggestion. But they do love each other. Even when Emma gets hard proof that her husband is only partly committed to her, an aggravated breakup is not in the cards.
The last act is handled quite well, without the full-on tearjerking of the later bittersweet soap Steel Magnolias. Just as in real life, the characters get older but not necessarily wiser. Life brings hard Experience, but few hard and true life lessons — the ‘endearment’ that binds us together is its own reward.
Again, we admire James L. Brooks’ ability to navigate the pitfalls of star egos and creative panic. Each of these stars had the clout and force of will to interfere with the movie’s direction, had they felt threatened. Brooks must had to work through at least some tensions while filming. We’ve read about arguments on the set but the finished film betrays nothing. Until told otherwise, we attribute to Mr. Brooks’ considerable talent, what must have been a positive and secure creative environment.
“If you wanted to get me on my back, all you had to do was ask me.”
Despite scoring a high position in the billing, Danny DeVito puts in a minimum of screen time as one of Aurora’s admirers. Did Brooks shoot more material that was discarded? It also needs to be said that some of the scenes with small children are exceedingly good. The difficulties with Emma’s young son Tommy (Troy Bishop) are exceptionally believable. The kid chooses the exact wrong time to give his mother grief, which is exactly like real life. Yet we understand, and don’t want to strangle the kid.
One doesn’t need to know backstage stories to appreciate Terms of Endearment — hints that MacLaine and Winger didn’t get along are irrelevant considering the richness of what’s on screen. Director Brooks’ shooting style is also invisible, completely character driven. He’s neither a Coverage Hack nor a showoff stylist. His scenes unspool so smoothly, we don’t feel a speed bump when the continuity suddenly jumps ahead several years. The production design is seamless — Emma and Flap’s rented Iowa house looks like a ‘take it or leave it’ termite trap with peeling paint. When we see our favorite designer Polly Platt with a big upfront credit, we have to think she contributed a lot to Brooks’ first big screen outing, as a general creative assistant, too.
I can’t believe that it took me until 2020 to finally see that movie.