Mother (1996)

One of my all time favorites.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Albert Brooks seems to have made a career out of writing, and starring in, successful small films about a man (played by Brooks) who has some self-esteem issues. By small films I mean they can be shot in any city, don't require special effects, and use very good actors but ones who are not fantastically expensive at the time of the filming. I usually find his movies enjoyable, but not "rolling in the aisles with laughter" funny. (Very few shows cause me to laugh out loud, and fewer crack me up the way some of Alec Guinness' classic comedies did.)This film is no exception. It is not the funniest or wittiest film of our time, but it is funny, witty, insightful and points out the humor of the human condition. In this case the story is about a writer (Brooks) who has recently been divorced, again, and is trying to understand why his marriages, and relationships with women in general, have been so unsuccessful. He realizes that the common factor in his marriages is that he marries women who are not supportive of him; they don't see him as a successful author. He comes up with the idea that his problem with women stem from his relationship with his mother (played delightfully by multi-talented Debbie Reynolds), who always finds fault with him but dotes on his younger brother (played by Rob Morrow), a sports agent with a wife and children. So he decides to try an experiment of moving back into his old room in his mother's house to try to learn more about why they interact the way they do.Woody Allen also writes comedies that are strong on character, but Allen seems to me to be on a higher tier, with more complex characters and deeper situations. I don't see Brooks as the West Coast Allen.

Miss Reynolds came out of "semi-retirement", as she likes to say, to star in this Albert Brooks comedy. She is amazing - so underplayed - so deadpan - so funny. Brooks on the other hand can be a whiner at times and you almost want to slap him for what he says to his mother, but like a good mom, she takes it and realizes he loves her deep down and doesn't mean it. The two together in their scenes are right on with pacing and the snappy dialog Brooks has written. Rob Morrow is a hoot as the jealous brother who also wants the mother's attention as well as a young Lisa Kudrow in a small, but very funny, part of a girl he goes out with after his divorce. For anyone with a mother, this film is a must!

I normally don't like Albert Brooks comedies because his humor is subtle, and sometimes, so sarcastic that it seems to me, that he tries too hard. He often comes off like a gigantic dufus who's every character, is always the over-looked, but honest and quite nice guy (see Broadcast News). Here, he is once again, the same character. However, in watching this movie with my folks, I found it to be quite a funny little comedy about a grown man who tries to connect with his mother. Brooks plays John, a writer who is recently divorced. Suffering from writer's block, probably due to his recent 'problems,' he decides that he needs some sort of emotionally reinvigorating experience. One in which he is in search of "something," but he doesn't really know what it is. Sort of like, he'll know it when it happens.He goes to spend some time with his widowed mother, Beatrice, played by the lovely Debbie Reynolds. They seem like exact opposites, she is timid, and somewhat flaky. He is rather pushy, and often, sarcastic. She appears more provincial; he comes off as more modern. It doesn't seem like they're related at first, because they're so different. What might've started as a desire to find some inspriation to write by cooling off from a divorce, becomes a 360 drive to reconnect with his mother, and work out their innocuous differences in personality, outlook, humor, and so forth, until mother and son finally understand one another. This may not be clear to either intially that this will eventually be the ends to the vacation.Rob Morrow plays John's equally annoying brother, a "mama's boy" type who frequently contacts Beatrice, trying to get her to be more modern and everything else like John does, but at the same time, not trying so hard to force it on her, and also, not trying like John to resolve anything laden in their relationship that may be troubling them. Though, it seems to be suggested that there is a slight "Oedepis Complex." But, Rob Morrow is only a subplot, and kind of an aggravating character at that. Beatrice seems so pleasant, and so well...motherly. The strange reformations that John and his mother take on are quite amusing. The bit, for example, in the beginning when John first arrives at his mother's house, and she doesn't seem to have anything he likes to eat. Or, when they go to the mall together, and he tries to stop her from always feeling obligated to explain everything to strangers (like her son is a middle aged divorced man with writer's block). It's really cute. According to the trivia, Nancy Reagan was considered for Debbie Renynolds' role, which would've probably been played wonderfully by her. Some of things that Reynolds's (like the restaurant scene) is hilarious with the cursing and all of that as she becomes impatient with her son John's wanting to change her every moment. Basically, the whole movie is Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds. John McGinnley and Lisa Kudrow show up for a minute role as the best friend and blind date (respectively). It might be worth watching for older audiences. I watched it with my folks, and they really seemd to enjoy it (they usually don't like Albert Brooks movies, either). It's worth a try.

Albert Brooks has made a lot of money (and a couple of pretty good movies) by whining. He may not like being called the "West Coast Woody Allen", but these neurotics who keep returning to the same neurotic themes are certainly not worlds apart. I'm a big fan of the writer/director's 'Real Life' & 'Lost In America' and I expected his mid-life crisis mama's boy movie, 'Mother', would delight me in the same ways. Nah. Brooks is not very enjoyable this time and Debbie Reynolds (as the cold-fish title character) is merely acceptable.In a creaky contrivance, two-time divorcee John Henderson (Brooks) decides to move back in with his unenthused mom to solve his woman dilemma. If he can find out what's wrong with this screwed-up relationship, then he might be able to find Mrs. Right Enough To Marry. It's a curious theory and I wonder if Freudian shrinks in the audience kept themselves from falling over in Hamlet-like convulsions. Most of the film is stuffed with the grating, quirky bickering of two complainers who weren't as fascinating as they might have seemed on paper. They weren't even interesting enough to keep me from thinking about my grocery list.This comedy ended 30 minutes ago and I can't remember one funny joke. Brooks' script (with frequent collaborator, Monica Mcgowan Johnson) has Debbie Reynolds uttering a few dirty words and the filmmakers seems to think this can carry minutes of limp comedy at a stretch. Sure, there are no invented melodramas (unless you count the awkward scenes with Rob Morrow, as the fortunate son who clings to his madre like a total wuss) and the film could have been even more annoying. What we have is a flimsy, psycho-babble kvetchfest with ho-hum revelations and a plot resolution that seems incredibly obvious from the opening credits. 'Mother' is too much 'Muse', not enough...well, anything other than 'The Muse'.