It takes all of perhaps five minutes to fall in love with the leading characters in Terms of Endearment and from that point on, the audience is just putty in the extremely capable hands of writer-director James L. Brooks.
Terms of Endearment
Come to laugh, come to cry, come to care, come to terms.
1983 · 2h 12m · PG
Comedy, Drama
Directed by
James L. Brooks
Overview
Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.
Director and cast
- James L. Brooks Director
- Shirley MacLaine as Aurora Greenway
- Debra Winger as Emma Greenway Horton
- Jack Nicholson as Garrett Breedlove
- Danny DeVito as Vernon Dahlart
- Jeff Daniels as Flap Horton
- John Lithgow as Sam Burns
- Lisa Hart Carroll as Patsy Clark
- Betty King as Rosie Dunlop (as Betty R. King)
- Huckleberry Fox as Teddy Horton
- Troy Bishop Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Terms of Endearment is about three relationships and students of screenwriting would do well to study the way in which these three stories are told completely and effortlessly in a movie of average length.
Its quirky rhythms and veering emotional tones are very much its own, and they owe less to movie tradition than they do to a sense of how the law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.
Brooks' dialog is wonderful throughout and all the characters carry off their assignments beautifully, even down to Danny De Vito and Norman Bennett as MacLaine's other suffering suitors.
[Writer-director James L. Brooks] has television in his soul: his people are incredibly tiny (most are defined by a single stroke of obsessive behavior), and he chokes out his narrative in ten-minute chunks, separated by aching lacunae.
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