Mother (1996)

Film: Mother (1996)

Stars: Albert Brooks, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Morrow

Director: Albert Brooks

Oscar History: Reynolds was favored to get a nomination for Best Actress (she got one for the Globes), but was one of several high-profile snubs that year.  Reynolds, ever a sport, spoofed this expectation at the Oscars in a hilarious bit written by her daughter you can watch here.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Debbie Reynolds: click here to learn more about Ms. Reynolds (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we mentioned last week, Debbie Reynolds' film career dissipated at roughly the same time frame as our last two stars (Audrey Hepburn & Doris Day), with The Unsinkable Molly Brown being one of her final major hits.  Reynolds was best in the types of romantic comedies and musicals that had both gone out of fashion & that she was too old for by the mid-1960's, when she was in her thirties (a much different sentence at that time than it would be now).  She did a television show, but foolishly quit it (she would later claim it was the biggest mistake of her life) amidst arguments with NBC over whether they would allow cigarette advertising (which was soon after made illegal anyway).  Her marriage to Harry Karl ended in scandalous divorce, one that basically left her broke, and she spent much of the 1970's & 80's working in stage and concert acts, trying to rebuild her fortune (with mixed results-much of Reynolds' story is the tale of bad investments, both in her finances & in men).  She very nearly got a real comeback, though, in 1996, winning a Golden Globe nomination for Albert Brooks' Mother, a movie that most (including Entertainment Weekly) at the time assumed would lead to her finally getting a second Oscar nomination, perhaps even a win.  But in a bold move, the Academy chose to largely ignore studio pictures that year and that meant that Reynolds' (it would turn out to be last) chance at a competitive Oscar went the way of the dodo.  To close our month with her, we're going to look at that film, and see if Oscar missed out.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about John Henderson (Brooks), who is a successful science fiction writer who has just gone through his second divorce, and doesn't understand why he cannot have a successful relationship with a woman.  He decides to go to the source, and moves in with his mother Beatrice (Reynolds), who is a widow, far closer with his younger brother.  Beatrice is confused by the experiment, and also doesn't understand John's life choices, putting him down to strangers, talking about his divorce and how he's living with her temporarily, but as the film progresses, he begins to understand her as a separate person.  Brooks film ends with him realizing that his mother had given up her goals of becoming a writer herself to raise her two sons, which had led to some animosity to her eldest son getting to live the dream she'd given up for him.

Albert Brooks' films are always gentle, and usually quite introspective, and this is the case with Mother, his most successful directorial effort in terms of the box office.  I think he shares a lot about the way we don't understand our parents.  The way he nails the need for Reynolds' Beatrice to always have to "correct a narrative no one asked about" (bringing up subjects that make her uncomfortable before other people do so she gets to decide what they think)...we've all seen our mothers do that.  It's not breaking a lot of new ground in terms of Brooks himself (I like his Defending Your Life better), but it's quite knowing and enjoyable.

The best part of this movie is Reynolds.  You know it's a pet peeve of mine to complain about snubs when I haven't seen all of the contenders (which I haven't-I'm missing one of the Oscar nominees and a bunch of the also-rans in 1996), but know that Reynolds will be on my For Your Consideration page for that year's Best Actress contest.  This is the best performance I've seen of hers outside of Singin' in the Rain.  The knowing way that she understands not just Brooks script, but seems to know things about it that even he doesn't catch (like the way that parents never stop compartmentalizing what they tell their children) is so smart.  This is considerably better than the film she actually got a nomination for, and had she been nominated, this would've been the kind of performance that could've won her the Oscar she long coveted.

But Reynolds would never win a competitive statue, though she would get the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2015, though at that point she wasn't well enough to pick up the statue herself (her granddaughter actress Billie Lourd accepted on her behalf).  Lourd would note in her speech that she'd "never seen her miss a show" and indeed Reynolds would continue working until the end of her life, most notably in the Halloweentown movies on Disney Channel, introducing her to a new generation of moviegoers.  Reynolds died in 2016, just one day after the shocking demise of her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher.  The two, basically inseparable toward the end of their lives, according to her son Todd, couldn't bear to be apart.

Next month, we are going to move fully into the 1960's, and talk about a woman who would not just serve as America's Sweetheart, but also fill in an unusual prototype that would become a cliche in the half century that followed: the girl-next-door...who rebelled against that image when she wanted to start a new chapter in her career.  You'll find out who this is on Monday!