MOTHER, COUCH - Mark Reviews Movies

Mother, Couch, Film Movement

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 4, 2024

What's going on here? That's a question nobody really asks in Mother, Couch, even as things become stranger and stranger still in this story. An answer comes at the end of writer/director Niclas Larsson's debut feature, of course, but it's the sort of solution that makes pretty much everything that has come before it irrelevant. If we can't trust what we're seeing and hearing as any firm sort of reality, how much of any of this tale can actually trust?

This is, obviously, talking around the movie's big revelation. One should suspect it almost from the start. Indeed, Larsson basically confirms by the finale, and the filmmaker maybe undoes it with a final shot that is metaphorical, offers the possibility that the rest of the story is legitimate in some way, or continues the narrative's central idea after tricking us into thinking it's finished.

The whole movie wants us to buy into the rough dynamics of a fractured family, the trauma experienced by its lead character, and the notion that this occasionally surreal story is getting at some truth about these characters. It's difficult to accept any of that when nothing about the mechanics of the story and its logic can be guaranteed.

If the conclusion is at least to be believed, the one guarantee, perhaps, is David (Ewan McGregor), the youngest adult child of an 83-year-old woman who decided to plant herself on a couch in a furniture store. The mother, played by Ellen Burstyn, refuses to leave the store, get up, or even move from her particular seat on the couch. David is called to the store by his older brother Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans), who brought their mother there to look for a dresser, but now, the sons have to figure out how to convince or trick their mother to abandon this odd activity—or at least determine why she has become so attached to this specific piece of furniture.

Other characters are in the store or show up later, too. They include the brothers' elder sister Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle), who keeps suggesting the children call 9-1-1 in case something is really wrong with their mother, and Bella (Taylor Russell), the daughter of the shop's owner who is very pleasant about the odd scene happening upstairs and drops one non sequitur about the mother's age that might tell us everything we need to about the scenario.

The screenplay, adapted from a novel by Jerker Virdborg, becomes increasingly focused on narrative asides, such as some confusion over the name and personality of the store's owner (played by F. Murray Abraham), who uses a chainsaw as an aggressive sales tactic, as well as a late-night get-together where the guests speak in riddles about life and death. On top of that, David does occasionally leave the store, trying to patch things up with his wife Anne (Lake Bell), who has come to rely on another man for some things, and young daughter Bree (Penelope Young), whose birthday party he forgets about on account of his mother's stubborn act.

If one ignores all the strange things happening in and the odd suggestions being made by the central conceit, the movie does examine David's relationships with his mother, siblings, wife, and own children either directly or along the periphery. That's when Larsson's narrative makes the most sense, even if what we're seeing isn't real or is only partly such.

The mother's a quiet nightmare, expecting everything of her children but criticizing anything they attempt and digging the knife exactly where she knows it'll hurt the most. That last description, by the way, isn't just figurative, as the mother tells David that everything he thought he knew about his origins, which isn't much, was a lie. It's also a literal description of her actions, since the mother is carrying a letter opener she uses to slice David's hand (blaming him for trying to take it from her) and that ends up in the son's back for an extended, unnoticed period of time. Since there's only one situation in life where the metaphorical is made somewhat tangible, the movie's game keeps pointing us in one direction, really, to make sense of what's happening.

That makes it predictable and frustrating, especially when the material has intriguing characters—the family and their distanced dynamic, in particular—and some notable actors doing their best to cut through the weird goings-on. McGregor's quite good as a man in a state of near-constant panic, juggling his need to seek the approval of his mother, the desire to reacquaint himself with his siblings, and the obligations he has to his own family, while also fearing that he's losing all of the people who have mattered to him. Ifans is amusing as the forgetful, indecisive, and/or uncaring brother, and Burstyn conveys some psychological wounds of the mother's own that might explain why she's so hard on her kids.

Still, Mother, Couch continually and ultimately evades such emotions and realities for the game it's playing. By the end, it's less a question if we can trust anything we've seen and more one of whether or not it's worth the effort.

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