The film covers 30 years of the relationship between hard-to-please Aurora Greenway (MacLaine) and her daughter Emma (Winger) as Aurora is looking for love while Emma has her own marriage problems.
22 April 1937, Neptune, New Jersey, USA
17 November 1944, Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA
7 January 1953
19 August 1954, San Bernardino, California, USA
23 September 1947, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
24 April 1934, Richmond, Virginia, USA
September 24, 1956 in Warrensburg, Missouri, USA
19 February 1955, Athens, Georgia, USA
23 June 1952, Steubenville, Ohio, USA
January 10, 2014
In his directorial debut, Brooks proves himself a master with actors.February 20, 2009
Its quirky rhythms and veering emotional tones are very much its own, and they owe less to movie tradition than they do to a sense of how the law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.February 20, 2008
Brooks' dialog is wonderful throughout and all the characters carry off their assignments beautifully, even down to Danny De Vito and Norman Bennett as MacLaine's other suffering suitors.February 22, 2015
It takes all of perhaps five minutes to fall in love with the leading characters in Terms of Endearment and from that point on, the audience is just putty in the extremely capable hands of writer-director James L. Brooks.December 17, 2006
[Writer-director James L. Brooks] has television in his soul: his people are incredibly tiny (most are defined by a single stroke of obsessive behavior), and he chokes out his narrative in ten-minute chunks, separated by aching lacunae.February 22, 2013
This is American mainstream movie-making at its best.January 02, 2011
Glossy, funny, and packs a real emotional wallop.February 22, 2013
There's not enough substance to support the sentiment of this longish comedy-drama.January 10, 2014
Its soppy story is freed from cheap tear-jerking by Brooks' confident direction, Larry McMurtry's poignant script and a flawless ensemble.March 16, 2008
The tragi-comedy never made me reach for my hankie, never tickled my funny bone and it never found a way into my heart.January 18, 2013
Terms of Endearment is about three relationships and students of screenwriting would do well to study the way in which these three stories are told completely and effortlessly in a movie of average length.June 24, 2006
Then The Illness strikes, and the film changes gear completely, pulling out all the stops and almost incidentally delivering one of the best-acted, most moving death-bed scenes in recent memory.