Terms of Endearment (1983)

My Review

The Best Picture of 1983 is…..”Terms of Endearment.” The story centers on a mother and daughter working out a dysfunctional family relationship. Sparks fly when their romantic situations falter and one of them has a terminal cancer diagnosis. Director-screenwriter James L. Brooks, in his big screen debut, constructed an engrossing drama with good acting and an outstanding script. This co-creator of CBS-TV’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” adapted the screenplay from the 1975 novel by Larry McMurtry, which, like the film, covers thirty years of the mother-daughter drama.

Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger are definitely in their element with these roles, as is Jack Nicholson as MacLaine’s unfaithful boyfriend direct from central casting. MacLaine and Nicholson won Oscars for their efforts, as did Brooks for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, for a total of five Academy Award wins out of eleven nominations. Non-winners include Best Actress (Winger), Best Supporting Actor (Lithgow), Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Original Score (Michael Gore).

Co-stars include Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow, Huckleberry Fox, Debi Richter, David Wohl, Paul Menzel, and Mary Kay Place and Albert Brooks in voice roles.

The very watchable melodrama “Terms of Endearment” was the second highest grossing film of 1983 for producer James L. Brooks and Paramount Pictures. It was filmed in Texas and Nebraska. A sequel called “The Evening Star” was released in 1996, with MacLaine and Nicholson.