Adapted from the novel Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Aurora Greenway is a widow whose life mainly consists of two things: toying with her various suitors, and criticizing her adult daughter, Emma, for her life choices. Emma does her best to please her mother, and everyone else in her life, though success is essentially impossible.
Speaking of essentially impossible, that's how I'd describe trying to summarize this story after reading the book and watching the movie. They are so incredibly different that if it weren't for the character names and the picture of Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger on the cover, I would have thought I was reading the wrong book. This is certainly one of the least faithful adaptations to win this Oscar. I can't decide whether I liked the book or the movie better. Some changes were definite improvements, but others I have strong objections to.
One thing I noted when I blogged about Shirley MacLaine's Best Actress win was that it seemed like Debra Winger (Emma) was in more of the movie than MacLaine (Aurora). Aurora is an important part of the movie, but Emma is clearly the protagonist. The novel is the opposite, or, more accurately, beyond the opposite. Aurora is decidedly the main focus of the book, and for most of it, Emma isn't even that important. The novel is split into two sections: Book I, called "Emma's Mother, 1962", which occupies pages 3 through 324; and Book II, "Mrs. Greenway's Daughter, 1971-1976", pages 327-371. Almost nothing from Book I made it into the film. The events of Book II start about 20 minutes in, and not even all of the first 20 minutes were from Book I, since the film starts earlier than the novel. Notwithstanding a few changes in the order and details of certain events, and an added trip to New York, Emma's story in the film is actually pretty consistent with Book II of the novel, but its importance is so altered that it feels inconsistent. To the novel, this story is almost an epilogue, showing that despite Aurora's best efforts to control everything and everyone in her life, bad things still happen to people she loves. The movie basically turns the epilogue into the main storyline. For the most part, I actually like this change. While the novel was obviously trying to emphasize that Emma always felt overshadowed by her mother by giving her a much smaller section, I think the mother/daughter dynamic was more intriguing than the widow/suitor dynamic, so I can't really fault the filmmakers for choosing to focus more on that. Also, by focusing more on Emma throughout, the movie makes the ending more devastating and personal, which works well from a dramatic standpoint. Book I of the novel goes off on a lot of tangents that really detract from the story. Aurora's maid, Rosie, has a lot of issues with her husband in the book that drag on and on. Rosie's barely in the movie, and her husband is only mentioned once, and I think these were wise omissions.
While I appreciate sacrificing some of the details of Aurora's, her suitors', and her maid's stories in favor of mother/daughter relationship development, I am almost appalled at what the filmmakers did to Aurora. Granted, Shirley MacLaine plays her to perfection. When I was reading the book, I could picture MacLaine doing and saying everything she did and said, even the things that weren't in the movie. But in the book, Aurora has all of her suitors wrapped around her finger. They're all terrified of her and try their best to woo her, but she's so willful and unpredictable that they always fail unless she wants them to succeed. When she finally picks the retired Army General, she is still clearly the dominant personality in their relationship. And now it's time for me to address the astronaut in the room: Jack Nicholson may have won an Oscar for this role, but his character isn't even in the book. I guess he's kind of a combination of a couple of the suitors, including the general, but there definitely was no retired astronaut in the book, much less a character named Garrett Breedlove. But the movie changed so many things that the name, profession, and even personality of the man Aurora ends up with are relatively minor. That's not what I object to. It's the nature of their relationship that I can't stand. I didn't like it the first two times I watched this movie, but after reading the book, it kind of disgusts me. Not only is Garrett the dominant personality in their relationship; she essentially swoons over him while he seems practically indifferent to her. And then there's the whole sex aspect. While Aurora's marriage to Emma's father wasn't particularly romantic, the book details several passionate affairs in Aurora's past. The movie treats Aurora's relationship with Garrett as a kind of sexual awakening for her, and she ends up almost worshiping him, whereas in her romantic relationships in the book, she is always the one who is worshiped. This is crucial to her character, and I can't help resenting the filmmakers' apparent need to "tame" her with Garrett. I don't mind the fact that they changed her, but this change almost ruined her, and I think probably would have done so in the hands of a lesser actress. So not only did Shirley MacLaine thoroughly earn her Oscar, I think she also partly earned James L. Brooks his.
I could go on a lot longer about all the changes, but I think I've pretty much covered the main ones, so I'll leave it there. Stay tuned for yet another Best Picture winner, Amadeus, based on the play by Peter Shaffer.
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