Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Here I go again, reviewing a film that is somewhat dated, but I have recently been going through my video collection and realizing I have some awesome stuff that I think others will agree are some of the "Top Ten" (World According to Garp being one of them). Terms of Endearment has always been a favorite, too, and, being the Monday Morning Referee that I am, I do love to look back and pick things apart. This is how I personally grow - by rehashing events and situations and seeing how I contributed to it either being a success or failure.

In this case as an "armchair reviewer", I enjoy looking at human behavior, especially between parents and children, and figuring out how Mother A (a total narcissist like Aurora Greenway) produced Child B (a loving, sensitive, wide-eyed and naive daughter like Emma).

From the beginning of the film, you are quite aware of just whose needs are going to come first, especially when, after the funeral of her husband when Emma is only about five, Aurora plops into the bed of her young daughter and, rather than comfort her, she states, "Mama's tense. Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?" Emma blurts out, "No, thank you" (you have to love her!) and, naturally, Aurora, determined to get what she wants, rephrases it as "Well, then can I sleep in your bed tonight?" Naturally, the little girl knows this is her cue to take care of "Mama" and moves over to make room. Such is the genesis of many a co-dependent relationship and, while you will find yourself chuckling at the role reversal going on, you also feel a big "ewwww" coming up in your throat.

There is a lot to Terms of Endearment, since it chronicles the entire life of Aurora Greenway, her daughter, Emma, Emma's foibles as a wife, mother and betrayed spouse (once her husband's infidelity becomes verified). It moves from a comical romp to a quite serious analysis of "meaning making" on both Aurora's and Emma's part before they face a life changing event together. You probably already know the ending (after nearly 15 years of being in release, I assume you have heard about it or seen it yourself) but let's just say that Emma's illness requires her normally self absorbed mother to have to actually be empathic of her daughter's needs for a change and this is quite difficult for her to do.

The real turning point comes when Aurora wants to engage in some cutesy "girl talk" with her very ill daughter (who quite clearly is facing the worst possible prognosis and has three young children to consider). Aurora has had an on-again, off-again "relationship" (after a period of celibacy that lasted longer than the Pope's!)with next door neighbor and rascal, Garrett Breedlove (played on film as I believe he is in real life by Jack Nicholson) that is now "on again".

When she rushes to the hospital to tell all the juicy details to her terminally ill daughter (ahem - did she totally flunk Tact 101 or what??), she says, "I told him I loved him, Emma, and you know what he said?" After thirty years of always acquiescing to her mother's enormous ego, Emma finally shoots from the hip, saying, "I don't give a s**t, Mom, I'm sick. I've got things to figure out. Not everything is about you!" You go, girl! Too bad this takes place when time is so short and when personality changes are almost always short lived (during times of crisis).

There are so much "points" in Terms of Endearment, I could not possibly touch on them all. Therefore, I am choosing to focus on the mother/daughter relationship (since, like most women, I have had an "interesting" one of my own) and tell you about the finesse with which it is presented by Director James Brooks. He could hit you over the head with how inappropriate Aurora is and how Emma is the most ignored, yet most smothered little girl in all of Texas when she is young.

Instead, Brooks shows Emma demonstrating how well she has learned to tolerate her mother when others won't even bother with her any more. She is the epitomy of patience and understanding (while also knowing full well that Aurora is a world class manipulator). This multi-faceted depiction of a young girl who could have turned out to be quite wounded, despairing and emotionally barren is quite refreshing. It is always your hope as a filmgoer that, if you must witness a sad story or tragic story line, PLEASE have a point to it! Terms definitely has one if not many.

The most basic point of all comes from Gibran's infamous poem about how "your children are NOT your children" and "There are two things we can give our children: Roots, and Wings". Aurora struggles mightily to give Emma anything but roots full of guilt trips so trying to let her go at the end of the film is an honorable task for her.

I was, however, saddened at the embedded message that the only way Emma could truly be free of her mother was by dying. She marries "beneath her" (something her mother constantly harps on, of course) and even has an affair with a "middle aged, married Iowan" (another Aurora judgment) and makes that crucial misjudgment of many people in failing marriages: she keeps having children (with Flap, her bumbling and unfaithful husband, played winningly by Jeff Daniels).

Not surprisingly, Emma seems to always be doing the wrong thing to escape her mother's hold on her life. First, she marries Flap, a wedding her mother refuses to attend "because I was struck by the hypocrisy of coming to a wedding where I know you will compromise your future and make wretched your destiny." Major OUCH! What good is having an "in your face" with Mom if she won't even be there to see you do it? Then, when it becomes clear that Flap cannot financially provide for his family, Emma must return to the dependent child persona and shamefully ask her mother for money. While Aurora moans and groans about this, you also know she is somewhat delighted to have her daughter "back in the fold". It's sad but also a reality that, many times, our children marry to "get out of the house" and then come back in shame because they realize it was the wrong exit to take.

When Emma leaves and then returns to her louse of a cheating husband, knowing full well the marriage is all but over, you really feel her despair. She blindly follows him to Nebraska where he supposedly has gotten a "promotion" (but for the same pay) as a Department Head in a local college there. Soon after they arrive, she recognizes a woman on the campus as being the same woman Flap was having an affair with back in Iowa. Coincedence? Hardly. She confronts the woman by saying, "Are you the reason we moved to Nebraska?" In one of the funniest but also tragic scenes in the movie, Flap's bimbo quips, "I can't say anything until Flap talks to you, but let's just say you're probably not having any feeling I couldn't....validate." Psychobabble in its most glaring form, huh?

Sad to say, right on the heels of this betrayal, Emma learns she is very ill and things take a nasty, dramatic turn from here on in for the most part. Her affairs (how ironic) must be put in order and everyone has a chance to bid a tearful goodbye, even her guilty husband who admits he is "sucking up for forgiveness - who am I if I'm not the man who failed Emma?" There are some definite soap opera moments here when you expect to hear the organ music swelling in the background, but, trust me - if you haven't already, you WILL, I repeat, WILL cry when you see Emma's little bumpkins meeting with their mother in the hospital. I couldn't help but notice a little shoddy film editing, however, when her youngest child, Teddy, is crying at full tilt one moment and then, the next time the camera cuts to him, he appears to be quite "fixed up". Even Oscar winning moments have a few gaffes.

All totaled, this is a wonderful trip through a troubling but also humorous family life. The Greenways are far from perfect but, beneath a lot of the character disorders, co-dependency and psychobabble (like that which I just did), there is a very watchable movie here. True, affect-phobic males would probably rather stick needles in their eyes (straight from the mouth of Jack Nicholson's character) than sit through this but it certainly will appeal to the romantic females in the world who can perhaps relate to marrying young just to leave home, albeit to someone imperfect, maybe even all wrong, but trying mightily to be happy despite all the odds.

Both Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger were nominated for Best Actress (MacLaine won) and their feuding on the set made lots of headlines. Both went on to impressive careers , e.g., Winger later starred in the poignant film, Shadowlands (with Anthony Hopkins)and MacLaine chose some clunkers like "Guarding Tess" as well as starring in the sequel to Terms that pretty much bombed. I doubt either of them has since had the commercial success that Terms of Endearment represented for them. It appealed to a lot of us for being so "believable and real" and, fifteen years later, it still can make me cry. If you haven't done so already, give it a whirl and settle in with your popcorn and kleenex. After all, a good cry never hurt anybody.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older