Enter one of the most complicated mother-daughter relationships in Hollywood.
Aurora Greenway (Shirley Maclaine) utterly adores and loves her daughter, Emma (Debra Winger) while also being her biggest critic.
While Aurora is a socialite and widow, she has many suitors but does not approve of Emma's choice of husband in scholar Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels), yet, somehow despite the ups and downs, they remain best friends. Aurora skips Emma's wedding because Emma doesn't heed Aurora's advice and marries him anyway. While Flap is mostly dependable, he's a bit boring and Aurora just wants better for her daughter but Emma prefers a simple life instead. Despite being broke, Emma refuses to consider abortion when she gets pregnant with her third child, a decision neither of them regret.
Despite being closely bonded, both mother and daughter have their own lives. Emma must dealing with money woes and a cheating husband but she embarks on an affair all on her own, with the married but sexually repressed banker, Sam Burns (John Lithgow). Aurora ignores her misgivings about the alcoholic astronaut next door, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson) and gradually starts to date and fall in love with him even though he has many girlfriends and loves sex far more than she does.
Everyone comes together when Emma is diagnosed with cancer, which eventually leads to her death. Aurora has to fight with the nurses so Emma gets the treatment she needs and Emma tells Flap that her mom should get the kids, which he agrees to reluctantly, knowing he can't still have a career and raise them on his salary so the ending is bittersweet.
While Aurora and Emma are very much mother and daughter, they are also friends, telling each other many things that could make a person cringe but hopefully each tidbit of information brought them closer together and gave Aurora insight of how Emma raised her children, in an environment very different from her own. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-The debate of how stay-at-home moms are treated early, Emma's career-driven friends, scoffing at the fact that she doesn't work.
-The grocery store clerk is really the worst.
-We never learn what Flap is a nickname for.
-The acting is very good, but I'm surprised that Maclaine won the Oscar over Winger as they were both equally brilliant.
-Why must Nicholson always portray an asshole?
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