Shirley MacLaine as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment
Best Actress at the 56th Annual Oscars (1983)
Notable Quote:
“It’s not my fault but I’m sorry.”
Synopsis:
Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter Emma (Debra Winger) live their lives, fall in (and out of love), struggle with relationships, and through it all, talk to each other on the phone A LOT.
The character:
For a movie that on paper seems to be about a sweet mother/daughter relationship, Aurora Greenway is a pretty terrible mom. She’s a toxic mix: she’s a helicopter parent who thinks she can tell her daughter what to do and calls all the time, but when she’s criticized, she withholds her affection. She’s not wrong when she predicts that Emma’s marriage won’t be great, but her refusal to attend the wedding is beyond the pale: it’s not like Flap is abusive or a monster, he’s just a low-grade lameass. Also, I would love to point out that when her daughter asks for money, she refuses, even though a little money would have alleviated a lot of the family’s stress and potentially put the marriage back on track! Anyway, this might all seem like criticism but I actually love that the character is deeply flawed.
I’m more mixed on the way that the film portrays Aurora’s relationship with sex. Sure, it’s kind of interesting that she’s a weird prude who seems to feel that sex isn’t ladylike, only to come around after meeting Garrett (lmao, nothing to cause a sexual awakening like Jack Nicholson). But it’s also played as kind of a weird joke about how women don’t like sex, and the movie never actually explains where her feelings come from.
Maybe that’s my biggest issue with this character: I don’t understand her like I want to. I hate a film that boils down complex psychologies to like, my mom was mean to me as a kid, but some sense of Aurora’s background would have given us more context. It’s weird to me that in a movie centered on the relationship between a parent and child, we don’t ever get any sense of where Aurora came from, or what made her the person she is today. It makes what should be a fascinating character feel a bit hollow.
The performance:
Shirley MacLaine is a notable name, but I had never seen her in anything before Terms of Endearment. Here’s the thing: this performance is fine. It’s not bad at all, MacLaine is clearly a good actress, but it does feel like the Academy saw this is the last chance to give her an Oscar and took it. Actually, my major issue is that she was nominated against Debra Winger as Emma, and I was so captivated and blown away by her performance that I found myself wanting to move past the Aurora parts of the story back to Emma. Being able to make that direct comparison really hurts this performance.
With all that said, there are definitely things that I like here! MacLaine is, at this point, an “older” actress, playing a woman struggling with getting older, and that parallel is really fun. She also really sells the emotion of thawing her heart and actually allowing herself to love someone. Okay, I just looked on her Wikipedia and learned that she’s kind of a crazy asshole, so now I don’t feel so bad about critiquing her, lol.
The movie:
For what I thought might be a sappy melodrama, I actually had a lot of thoughts on Terms of Endearment! On the plus side, it’s a movie that sparked a lot of thoughts, especially about relationships. It’s easy to portray a mom as either horribly abusive, or a self-sacrificing martyr. But in this film, Aurora is both, and she’s neither, and the movie allows us to sit with that complexity, without trying to come to final conclusion. The same thing goes for Emma’s and Flap’s marriage: it’s both a disaster and filled with love, and there isn’t one obvious way to think about it. It’s also a really funny movie, one filled with zingers, which is the quickest way to my heart, so extremely enjoyable overall.
Was the Oscar deserved?
Yes, I’m not blown away but ultimately, I liked it well enough.