It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

(spoiler) The movie gives a beautiful picture of a mother-daughter relationship over a long period of time. However the ending (same as in the book) seemed contrived to me, as if the writers had decided they had run on long enough, so they kill off the daughter. A more natural approach would have been to continue until the grandchildren are adult and the daughter (long since divorced) moves in with her mother. The main difficulty would be that the movie would be three hours long at least.

Terms of EndearmentBeing your child's best friend is better than being their parent because you can always ditch them for cooler friends. Mind you, the mother and daughter duo in this dramedy is connected at the hip.Overbearing Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) becomes even more domineering when her husband dies and she's left to raise Emma (Debra Winger) alone. While the pair share a special bound, when Emma's husband (Jeff Daniels) is relocated that bond is strained. To cope with loneliness Aurora courts her neighbour (Jack Nicholson). But when Emma's health takes a dramatic turn she heads home to her mother.James L. Brooks' seminal tearjerker, this Oscar winner based on Larry McMurtry's best-seller was an emotional powerhouse when it was released in 1983. However, overtime its weepy ending and its mother-daughter dynamic have lost some of their initial impact. Incidentally, the one thing that always reunites daughters with mothers is bad husbands. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

I felt a strong urge to write a review for this film for two reasons. 1. Debra Winger and 2. Jack Nicholson. Really, this film couldn't have been nearly half as good if it weren't for the brilliant performances of these phenomenal artistes. Enough has been said about the film over the year for its teary eyed scenes (which I had to drag myself through) and its seamless blending of comedy and drama. Debra was brilliant throughout - she lived her character so cleverly that you couldn't doubt for one bit even after many years of seeing the film that she was only acting that role. So powerful. Jack Nicholson does what he does the best - being the bad boy, flare up his charms whenever he's on screen and simply, deliver some of the finest lines in the film! It seems that Jack played himself in the film, but it was a treat to watch. He rightfully earned his Academy Award while I felt bad Debra couldn't get any for that role. Shirley Mclaine, a legendary actress could easily portray the most unlikable character of the film. Danny DeVeto and John Lithgow gave some realistic portrayal in their cameos. One must also comment how beautifully the film is shot - Aurora's house and her garden is like a beautiful Renoir itself (Which is her favourite painter). The powerful scenes in the film couldn't have made a lot of people cry if it weren't for the melodious background score by Michael Gore. All in all a great film to watch. I felt sad at the end and you will too.

Terms of Endearment is a good exploration of the fact that parents don't often like their children even though they may love them, and children often have a hard time liking their parents when they turn out to be 100% correct - on the long haul - about the people they choose as spouses. Especially when the parents never let the child forget about the mistakes they have made. It also shows that death has a way of rewriting the past - often immediately.Emma falls in love and marries at a young age - about twenty. Her mother, Aurora, apparently married a man who was well off but died young. Aurora is controlling, illustrated in the first scene when she gets up to make sure Emma is breathing when she is an infant. Emma thinks she'll "be happy in a one room shack and she won't look back" when she marries poor young college teacher Flap Horton. And then the babies start coming, and keep on coming. At this point Flap and Emma prove they are quite flappable. Flap cheats because he can, and with a woman who is more like himself, more like the woman he probably would have married had he been older when he made that decision. Emma eventually cheats because she is drowning - in bills, in lack of emotional support, with an oldest son who sees the lack of respect everybody else gives his mother and apes the behavior.Then there is Jack Nicholson's place in all of this. As the aging astronaut who lives next door to Aurora, he is the only one who can get Aurora to fall off her pedestal as high priestess of perfect and emotionally detached decisions, and then she is terribly disappointed and surprised when he bolts as he feels the walls of monogamy closing in on him. Quite frankly, I was surprised that she was surprised that this happened.Some people have told me this is just an awful soap opera, but I disagree. Maybe a little bit because I have an aunt who trod the same tragic path as Emma, and maybe because I am also an exiled Texan who was a bit dismayed at the "lack of wildness in the people" in the state where I would spend the next quarter of a century. But then, I loved this film before any of those things happened.At any rate, highly recommended for the human drama of it all that hasn't really aged in 33 years. The only thing that lets you in on the fact that you are in a different time is Carol King's "It's Too Late" from 1971 playing as Aurora looks out the window at one point.