Mother

1996 "No one misunderstands you better."
6.9| 1h44m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 25 December 1996 Released
Producted By: Paramount
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.

Genre

Drama, Comedy

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Mother (1996) is now streaming with subscription on Paramount+

Director

Albert Brooks

Production Companies

Paramount

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Mother Audience Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
VividSimon Simply Perfect
Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.
nomoons11 First off, to like Albert brooks' films you have to think like a Woody Allen fan. He is exactly like Woody Allen except he came after Allen 10 or so years later. His films are "talkies" or "conversations".When I saw this back when it came out I walked out smiling. I hadn't seen it since then and so I thought I 'd revisit it and ya know what? I had the same reaction. What a wonderful little film.Basic premise is a not very successful SCI-FI writer decided he wants to go live with his mother to understand why he is the he is...and why he doesn't do well with women (he gets divorced at the beginning of the film). From there we get a jealous/needy younger brother and a look inside the inner workings of...well....moms. Why are mom's the way they are.In the end you'll get an AH HAH!!! moment when you see he figures his mom out. You'll go back in your mind and try your best to remember why your mom is, if not close, the same as Debbie Reynolds.There are so many funny moments in this film there are just too many to list. First and foremost, Albert Brooks is most certainly a writer...and a darn good one. I enjoy all his stuff like I do Woody Allen's. Walk into this and prepare to pay close attention to the dialogue and get all the little bits and pieces of ALbert Brooks mind.I'm pretty sure by the end of this one, you'll be walking away laughing and smiling one after another.
Petri Pelkonen Albert Brooks plays the son.Debbie Reynolds plays the mother.The son, science fiction writer John Henderson, moves back home to his mother Beatrice Henderson.And the reason this grown up man does so is because he feels like he should do so after two failed marriages.He thinks after that experience his chances for a successful relationship would be better.Albert Brooks directed, wrote and acted the lead in Mother (1996).He's terrific in the movie as is the legendary Debbie Reynolds playing the mother.Rob Morrow, who's still very well remembered as Dr.Joel Fleischman in the great 90's series Northern Exposure, does very good job in this movie playing the brother Jeff.Lisa Kudrow of Friends does a small part as Linda, the blonde John goes out with.She's just wonderful.Paul Collins is brilliant playing the Lawyer.John C. McGinley plays Carl in the movie and he's very good.Mother is a terrific movie that combines comedy and drama in a fine way.It's mighty funny when John makes his room look like exactly the same it looked like when he originally lived there.I think we all should take trips to the past every now and then.Maybe we learn something about ourselves.
jdollak Mother is a beautiful movie, in that it gives us an insight to our relationships with our parents. While I am not female, things might be a little different for daughters, but as a son, I can see the same behaviors that have cultivated in my mother. And she can see it in her mother. My girlfriend can see it in her mother, and her grandmother. While the comedy is a little dry, and actually slightly confusing on the initial viewing, if you return to the movie after a year or so, it will make complete sense. It only gets better after that. I can understand being underwhelmed by this movie the first time. Please don't judge it too harshly. I know I would have rated it a 6 or so when I first saw it, and now I've given it a 9. Maybe I should explain why it doesn't get a 10. There are a few sequences that should have been altered. I found the date scene to be a little too long, and the Mrs Robinson sequence should have been almost completely eliminated. It is a painfully bad gag, and the humor of it is something that can only be appreciated by those of a certain mind set. Don't worry, I'm not insulting you if you like it.
Ryan Ellis 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'.