Larry McMurty's novel has been adapted to the screen amazingly well; the film won five Academy Awards, including the Best Adapted Screenplay Award, as well as Best Picture, Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine), Best Director (James Brooks), and Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson). The cast includes a wealth of Hollywood celebrities -- Debra Winger, John Lithgow, Jeff Daniels, Danny DeVito -- and the performances are outstanding throughout the film.
The story is one of a mother, Aurora Greenway, (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter, Emma (Debra Winger), and how their relationship develops over the years, from the day that their husband/father dies. Aurora is a woman with more than her share of admirers, whom she takes great delight in keeping at a distance, and who has a rather contentious relationship with her daughter, whose marriage to Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) she opposes to the point that she boycotts the wedding. As it turns out, Mother is right. The marriage between Emma and Flap is less than rosy, with both having their extramarital affairs (although the extramarital affair that Emma has with Sam Burns, played by John Lithgow, comes across as endearing in the film). Almost parallel to the philandering of the daughter comes the pie-eyed former astronaut next door, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson), who makes no pretenses about his intentions toward Aurora, and this time Aurora gives in. For the time that the affair lasts, Aurora is very happy. It has its run, then stops, but then starts again. Garrett, as it seems, has a problem with commitment, but he also has a problem with walking out on a good thing, too.
Flap comes home one day to break the bad news that the family is moving, thereby ending Emma's affair with Sam but continuing an affair that Flap was having. Emma discovers the affair and is indignant, but by now, Emma is also a mother and dying of a terminal illness. It becomes clear that Flap is not a candidate to care for the children after Emma dies, and Aurora re-enters the picture as the grand matriarch who will take over. When the moment of Emma's death arrives, the shock is still as painful as if nobody had expected it to happen. Garrett resurfaces to comfort the grieving Aurora and her family in a gesture that surprises Aurora greatly.
What really makes this film succeed is the vividness of the performances of the actors and actresses. Debra Winger's performance as the daughter who grows through a bad marriage and ultimately dies from cancer is unforgettable. Jack Nicholson's performance, as much as he has played the lecherous male before, takes on a new dimension in this film. Shirley MacLaine's performance earned her an Academy Award; she gives a superb touch in the most unforgettable scene in the film in which she approaches the nurses' station in the hospital at 10pm to tell the nurses to give her daughter her pain shot. As is very typical in all too many medical institutions, the nurses are preoccupied with their internal bureaucracy and not with relieving the suffering of the patients. That is enough to make her go ballistic; she starts to run around the station, screaming at the top of her lungs. The histrionics add both an intensely personal and yet somewhat comical touch to a poignant part of the film in a way that is amazingly effective.
This is a film that is definitely not to be missed.