As someone mentioned up thread, looking back it may not seem that accomplished but in 1983 it marked the emergence of Debra Winger as a major actress (after high profile roles in Urban Cowboy and Officer and A Gentleman), it was the first time Jack Nicholson played this kind of middle-aged character (which would become the template, more or less, for the rest of his career), it was the first feature by James L. Brooks after success on television with Mary Tyler Moore and Taxi, and it was a re-emergence of Shirley MacLaine - whose popularity went back decades with generations of filmgoers - as a big screen powerhouse of an actress. It also dared to be ordinary and there were plenty of more urbane people at the time who were left scratching their heads at its popularity.
Part of it is Brooks' screenplay and direction which delivers satisfying scenes and snapshots from the very beginning, carefully subverting our expectation of sentiment, somehow saving the big emotional payoffs for the end while still managing to surprise - with MacLaine's manic outburst at the hospital, perfectly rooted within her character, and the sudden silence of Emma's death followed by MacLaine's immediate and sudden regret. And, of course, it's the performances as well: aside from the headliners, we'd never seen Jeff Daniels on screen before and Terms was the moment when John Lithgow worked his way into people's hearts, nabbing an Oscar nomination to boot.
And the score, at once familiar and uniquely fitting to this story. It added to the sense of how these two women faced the challenges in their lives. All of it made for a satisfying comic drama in which we watch nothing more than a complete cycle of life in which its lack of pretension is part of its charm.
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