An Indie Movie With an All-Star Cast, ‘Mother, Couch’ Wears Its Eccentricities Proudly

“Mother, Couch” is an indie movie with an all-star cast — which is, in and of itself, a common phenomenon. Big name Hollywood-types will cast their lot with cult-size filmmakers for a variety of reasons, some of them cynical (fostering one’s cinematic street-cred) and others not (belief in the storyteller’s vision). A pay cut is usually in the offing and sometimes paying out of pocket. That, and people like to work. Never underestimate an artist’s love for the artform.The thing is, “Mother, Couch” is really indie. It’s a film whose eccentricities are bred in the bone and worn proudly, even defiantly. This is director and writer Niclas Larsson’s debut feature and it is confident in approach, if not always consistent in tone. Sometime around the three-quarter mark, his picture hops the tracks, shape-shifting in ways that wildly overstates the story’s core theme: the inescapability of and complications inherent in family.Brothers, mothers, sisters and fathers: you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Within that mundane revelation, Mr. Larsson leavens his story with unlikely fillips, droll asides, Freudian byways and pretensions worthy of a sophomore philosophy major. How true the picture is to its literary inspiration, Jerker Virdborg’s novel “Momma I Soffa” (2020), I can’t say: the Swedish author has yet to be translated into English. But if I can trust my non-expert translation of “humoristiskt absurdistisk,” Mr. Larsson is close to the mark.But back to those movie stars. Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn, going strong at 91-years of age, plays the title role. Oscar-winning actor, F. Murray Abraham, gets to schtick it up as the owner of a mingy furniture store. Ewan McGregor hasn’t won an Academy Award, but he’s here as both the lead and executive producer. Lara Flynn Boyle of “Twin Peaks”-fame is on-hand as is fashion-forward actress Taylor Russell. Last but not least is Rhys Ifans, the Welsh actor who achieved fame by mistaking a jar of mayonnaise for a bowl of yogurt in “Notting Hill” (1999).David (Mr. McGregor, very unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi) is a harried, mid-level executive of one sort or another. We see him charging through the parking lot of a down-on-its-heels strip mall. He’s heading to Oakbed’s Furniture. Why did he park so far away from the store’s entrance when there isn’t another car in sight? But, then, everything is displaced in this outpost of middle-America. Entering the store, David is surprised to see his brother Gruffudd (Mr. Ifans) speaking with a pretty young woman working the counter, Bella (Ms. Russell). The two men haven’t seen each other in ages. David is flabbergasted.Bella informs David that his mother (Ms. Burstyn) is upstairs ensconced on a sofa and refuses to leave. After winding his way through a raft of labyrinthian passageways, David finds himself at a loss in dealing with the situation. Two things are certain: mom isn’t going to budge and David is late for a family function. Phone calls with his wife Anne (Lake Bell) are as frazzled and frustrating as the conversations with his mother. David is convinced that mom is addled. Gruffudd is too busy chatting up Bella.A stubborn mother requires desperate measures. Gruffudd enlists the aid of estranged older sister and inveterate chain-smoker, Linda (Ms. Boyle). She’s a pill, our Linda, what with her foul language and fouler demeanor. Her solution for dealing with an intractable parent? Calling 9-1-1. A lot of bickering ensues. There’s a wild goose chase for mom’s pills. David’s idea of getting her home by purchasing the sofa and carrying her out on it is re-thought after he gets a load of the price tag. To tide things over, Bella offers David a berth for the night at Oakbed’s and, maybe, something more . . . ?All of which is played with admirable deadpan, consummate timing and, during a scene in which David breaks into tears, heart-rending conviction. Mr. Larsson keeps things on an even keel, though he never shakes a smugness of affect. And then “Mother, Couch” takes a turn towards the histrionic. Channeling Luis Buñuel and Terry Gilliam, our tight-lipped aesthete condescends to his characters by pulling the rug out from under both them and the audience. Mr. Larsson rights the movie at its close, but the damage is done: this auspicious debut is a mixed bag of nuts.

An Indie Movie With an All-Star Cast, ‘Mother, Couch’ Wears Its Eccentricities Proudly

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