Short Take: Terms of Endearment

This review originally appeared on Pol Culture.

Until its shamelessly tearjerking final act, Terms of Endearment (1983) is an entertaining, quirkily funny treatment of the close, if stormy, relationship between an uptight middle-aged widow (Shirley MacLaine) and her unpretentious adult daughter (Debra Winger). The picture follows them through the daughter’s marriage to a philandering college professor (Jeff Daniels), and the mother’s affair with an astronaut neighbor (Jack Nicholson). There are also the daughter’s assorted domestic dramas, including a brief fling with an insecure banker (John Lithgow). James L. Brooks, who wrote and directed, was previously known for the TV sitcoms Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the picture isn’t far removed from their style. Oddball characters of varying eccentricity are played off each other for pleasantly contrived humor. The actors are directed to stay loose, breathe with the material, and shine. The film is enjoyable enough for a viewer to forget about the its distastefully manipulative closing section. As with Brooks' sitcoms, the cast is first-rate. Debra Winger is probably the most impressive. She’s an astonishingly vibrant presence as the daughter, and in her quieter scenes, the character’s feelings seem to be emanating through her skin. Shirley MacLaine plays the cantankerous mother with terrific, almost show-stopping skill. She’s perhaps a bit too theatrical at points, but she demonstrates time and again how to use her timing for maximum comic and dramatic effect. As the astronaut, Jack Nicholson isn’t called on to play much beyond his standard over-aged bad-boy persona, but he may never have handled it as hilariously as he does here. John Lithgow’s earnest wistfulness is note-perfect, and while Jeff Daniels isn’t given much to do beyond playing straight man to the two female stars, he certainly holds his own. Among the behind-the-scenes artisans, production designer Polly Platt deserves special kudos; the mother’s grotesquely overcultivated garden is witty perfection. The screenplay is based on Larry McMurtry's 1975 novel. (The Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, and Jeff Daniels characters first appeared in McMurtry's 1970 novel Moving On; Jack Nicholson's role was created by James L. Brooks for the film.)

Short Take: First Name: Carmen

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

In his 1983 film First Name: Carmen, director Jean-Luc Godard provides impulsive young protagonists, cinematic in-jokes, and a crime story he can’t quite commit to. In short, he seems to be revisiting the hallmarks of his great nouvelle vague films of the 1960s. But Godard’s interests obviously lay elsewhere, and he clearly resented covering this territory again. The film often seems out to spite viewers who were expecting the spirit of his older work. The protagonist (Jacques Bonnaffé) is a security guard who gets mixed up in a bank robbery and other efforts by a gang to finance a documentary. Like many nouvelle vague heroes, he is frustrated by his unrequited passion for the heroine (Maruschka Detmers). But the way this film presents it, it’s not charming; it’s pathetic, creepy, and ultimately horrifying. And the heroine is a far cry from her ‘60s antecedents. The girls Anna Karina and others played were happy-go-lucky charmers. The Detmers character is a blandly vicious temptress whose goal is to “show the world what a woman can do to a man.” She regularly taunts the hero with her nude body, and with little kisses and caresses, but she tells him, “If I love you, that’s the end of you.” The older films had a winsomely sexy manner; this picture rubs the viewer’s nose in an ugly-minded, quasi-pornographic smuttiness. Godard’s one-time delight in his heroines has curdled into misogyny. He also appears as the heroine’s loopy uncle, and his attitude is clear from the lines he gives himself: “Kids today are scum,” and so on. The film frequently cuts to shots of the seashore and a string quartet performing Beethoven. One gets the distinct feeling Godard would rather pay attention to these than the main story. Most viewers will likely prefer the surf and music, too. Among the film’s few admirable features is Raoul Coutard’s stunningly beautiful cinematography. Anne-Marie Miéville is credited with the script, a (very loose) modern adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella Carmen. (Georges Bizet used it for the libretto of his 1875 opera.)


Reviews of other films by Jean-Luc Godard:

• Alphaville
• Band of Outsiders
• Breathless
• Les Carabiniers
• Contempt (Le Mépris)
• Une Femme Mariée (A Married Woman)
• Made in U. S. A.
• Le Petit soldat
• Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live)
• Weekend
• A Woman Is a Woman