The other night, I stayed up later than usual to watch the multiple Oscar-nominated film, “Terms of Endearment.” It’s a film based on Larry McMurtry’s book, with one significant difference: The film adds a major character — the middle-aged, former astronaut Garrett Breedlove (played to perfection by Jack Nicholson, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor).
At its heart, “Terms of Endearment” remains the story of Aurora Greenway and her daughter, Emma, told in a series of snapshots and flashbacks spanning several decades. Shirley MacLaine plays Aurora; Debra Winger plays her daughter, Emma. They are compelling in their respective roles, and both justifiably received Oscar nominations for Best Actress. MacLaine won.
The movie not only garnered wide critical acclaim but was also widely popular. It drew more viewers the year it was released than any other movie, except for the latest Star Wars epic.
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Aurora Greenway is a strong and beautiful woman. We eventually learn Aurora has been a widow since Emma was a small child. Aurora is at least fifty, and, in the words of her personal physician (and would-be suitor), “old.”
As a young woman, Emma marries Flap (Jeff Daniels) against Aurora’s wishes, in part, to get away from her. Emma and Flap move to another state after Flap obtains a teaching position at a state university. Aurora constantly calls Emma on the phone.
Quickly, Emma is a stay-at-home mom. Eventually, Emma and Flap have three kids. Unfortunately, Flap is a philanderer with his female students. Emma and Flap persevere for a time, thanks mainly to Emma’s forgiving spirit, her practical sense, and her steel determination.
Meanwhile, Aurora falls in love with her next-door-neighbor astronaut, finds the joy of sex, and in the process becomes less repressed.
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However, Aurora’s astronaut-boyfriend feels threatened and is scared off while observing Aurora interact with Emma and the three children after Emma returns home during a temporary separation from Flap. Later, during a routine doctor’s visit for one of her kids, it is discovered that Emma might have cancer.
Of course, the diagnosis is a terminal form of cancer. This is the main reason Rotten Tomatoes aptly describes Terms of Endearment as “A classic tearjerker.”
The film’s dramatic highlight occurs once Emma is hospitalized for her cancer. Aurora barely ever leaves her daughter’s side. One morning, Aurora explodes from her daughter’s room, screaming at the nursing staff because they are tardy in administering Emma’s painkiller. (This memorable scene helped to clinch MacLaine’s Oscar.)
Emma dies. Flap leaves, but not before he has agreed to Emma’s dying request that Aurora be permitted to raise their kids. Jack Nicholson reappears. We know that life must go on.
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My only criticism of this otherwise fine movie is the way that Emma’s death gets sanitized. Emma’s physical suffering and deterioration take place entirely off-screen.
Cancer also killed my sweet wife, Lee. And for me, the adage life imitates art sounds like an artist’s conceit.
I witnessed firsthand that Lee’s suffering was long, drawn out, and frequently punctuated by the most excruciating, unimaginable pain. Pain that forced her to howl in agony. A disease that physically diminished her, and bit by bit robbed her of strength, vitality, and ultimately, life itself. It was horrible to see and hear, but terrifying, too, because I was powerless to stop it. (Shortly before Lee’s death, after she had come home from the hospital to die, I was given a powerful narcotic in liquid form that I would administer to Lee with a Q-Tip. This medicine would briefly mute the pain and momentarily ease her suffering.) The whole awful ordeal played out for me “on camera,” and in real time. No one got spared.
Sometimes, in my mind, I will still hear Lee’s painful cries. More than five years since her passing, it still breaks my heart.
