Mother

with Albert Brooks, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Morrow
Written by Albert Brooks and Monia Johnson
Directed by Albert Brooks
(Columbia)
by William Ham

You may be under the impression that the inescapable release of the semi-annual aliens-come-to-Earth-and/or-nature-goes-nuts-either-way-lots-of-second-rate-actors-die picture constitutes an Event, or perhaps you save that title for the equally predestined arrival of the seasonal big-name-actors-look-solemn-and-try-on-phony-Southern-accents-as-they-take-down-murder-injustice-and-hypocrisy-in-slightly-under-two-and-a-half-hours release. If so, you can have them – personally, the advent of a new Albert Brooks film is all the Event I need, thank you. Part of the reason is simple chronology – in eighteen years, he’s directed only five movies (see below), so fans have a right to expect brilliance from a man who makes one picture per presidential administration – but there’s more to it than that. The best comedy is often the bravest, and Brooks has the most courageous persona in a genre given to well-intentioned, likable buffoons and neurotics. Brooks’ characters are self-absorbed schmoes, fearful, pitiful, and full of misery that they almost can’t help but spread to everyone they meet. The laughter in his films is therefore deeper, more honest, and more painful than almost any in mainstream American cinema. It’s a wonder the studios still allow him to exist.

That said, Brooks is showing signs of softening with age. Not to say that John Henderson, the twice-divorced science-fiction writer he plays in Mother, isn’t deeply screwed up and desperate – that’s to be expected – but he is more stalwart. After his second divorce, Henderson decides to take a step that would make most men quiver with fear. He’s moving back home with Mom.

It’s a hackneyed, formulaic premise, or at least it would be in most hands. Brooks, as always, gets the easy (if very funny) food/phone gags out of the way quickly to delve into the murky Oedipal waters of the mother/son relationship. If John is abrasively assertive, then Beatrice (Debbie Reynolds) is the queen of sweet-natured passive-aggressiveness; critical, divided in her attentions between John and his more successful, sports agent brother (Rob Morrow), and infuriating in ways that go farther than keeping a three-year-old block of cheese in her freezer the size of a Fiat. John, for his part, refuses to acknowledge the cramp in Mom’s style he’s causing with this experiment, turning a simple shopping spree into a fiasco or interrupting her (shudder) sex life merely by being there. This is the Brooks difference – where most films present parents as meddlesome thorns in their childrens’ sides, here it’s the grown-up child that’s getting in the way.

None of this would work if Brooks weren’t evenly matched, so he deserves every possible kudo for casting Reynolds (in her first major role in 27 years) as Beatrice. She’s a wonderful Everymom, technologically inept (the running gag with the picture phone is priceless) and yet quietly defiant in defense of her comfortable life. Reynolds makes nary a misstep, and Morrow and Lisa Kudrow (a classic bad date) are also impressive in their smaller roles.

Brooks is so insightful about familial dynamics that it’s a shame he wraps things up so neatly with a convenient third-act revelation that’s a bit too forced to ring true, but then, endings have always been a problem for him. No great crime, though – there’s enough wit, observation and truth in Mother to render this one of the best comedies of the season. I anxiously await Brooks’ next directorial effort, which should arrive sometime after the millennium. Should I queue up at the ticket booth now?