Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad), and Diablo Cody (Juno) are the best comic writers in Hollywood today. They have all perfected the art of combining shocking, brutally honest, and often raunchy comedy with sweet, honest humanity. Judd Apatow is the king and pioneer of this recent movement. With all the trash currently out there (Meet the Spartans, Fool's Good, Strange Wilderness), discerning filmgoers have Apatow to thank for resurrecting and reinventing a brand of comedy, with heart and hysterics, that has been virtually lost since the days of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder.
Albert Brooks Pays Tribute to Comedic Forefathers and Foreshadows Era of Apatow
In the large span of time between Sturges and Wilder and the Apatow Generation, there have been lots of great comedies in this same vein, just not as prolifically and easily quantifiable, except for maybe Woody Allen, his own one-man revolution. One such shining beacon is Albert Brooks' brilliant film from 1996, entitled simply Mother. Brooks helped keep the spark of humanistic hilarity alive until Apatow came along and made it a full-fledged phenomenon. As co-writer and director, Brooks is well-aware of his cinematic heritage, and this is part of his success. There's a lot of Sturges, Wilder, and Allen in this film. He even pays respect to the first distinctly American romantic comedy, It Happened One Night, with this wonderful line, said after his mother has meticulously divided the fridge in half so that none of their food would overlap: "It's like It Happened One Night for food!"
Paging Dr. Freud
Brooks stars as neurotic (aren't they all in great comedies?) writer John Henderson. He's constantly been outdone by his more successful mama's boy of a brother, and he has always felt neglected and belittled by his mother. After another divorce and severe writer's block, John decides to move in with his mother (a luminous Debbie Reynolds) to figure out what went wrong in their relationship. He believes, and Freud would agree, that his mother is the root of all his problems. In a sense, he's right. She's very passive-aggressively abusive, degrading, and completely condescending. There's also something Hitchcockian and creepy about him very formally calling her "Mother" all the time, just like in Psycho. This is no accident on Brooks' part.
The casting of Debbie Reynolds as his mother, Beatrice, is inspired. Bringing back one of the sweetest personalities to ever grace the silver screen (she's as cute as a really cheerful button in Singin' in the Rain) to play this delightfully bitchy, controlling, and nitpicky character is genius. But, Beatrice has her share of problems, too. She's not just a one-dimensional banshee. Reynolds brings so much depth and sincerity to the role, and she has impeccable comic timing to boot. She should have been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and she should have won.
Brooks is a total riot as John. He and Reynolds have the most amazing chemistry. The script is consistently hilarious and insightful, and it's also incredibly truthful. This is where it's similar to the Apatowian comedies. Mother is just as sarcastic, shocking, and brutally frank about life as it is life-affirming and heart-warming. If that wasn't enough to make people embrace this genius film, then the fact that everyone has had a mother or grandmother like Beatrice makes it instantly relatable, even more poignant, and even more side-splittingly entertaining.
Rating: ***** (out of 5)
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