Terms of Endearment

Widowed Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) keeps several suitors at arm's length, focusing instead on her close, but controlling, relationship with daughter Emma (Debra Winger). Anxious to escape her mother, Emma marries callow young college professor Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) over her mother's objections, moves away, and has three children. Despite their frequent spats and difficulty getting along, Emma and Aurora have a tie between them that cannot be broken, and keep in touch by telephone.

Emma and Flap soon run into financial and marital difficulties. Emma has trouble managing the children and household, and she and Flap both have extramarital affairs. Emma relies increasingly on her mother for emotional support. Meanwhile, the lonely Aurora overcomes her repression, and begins a whirlwind romance with her next-door neighbor, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson).

The Horton family moves from Houston to Des Moines and eventually to Nebraska, apparently for Flap's career, but mostly so he can be near his girlfriend. Emma is diagnosed with cancer, which becomes terminal. Aurora stays by Emma's side through her treatment and hospitalization, even while dealing with her own pain after Garrett suddenly ends their relationship. The dying Emma shows her love for her mother by entrusting her own children to Aurora's care. After Emma's death, Garrett re-appears in the family's life, and begins to bond with Emma's young children.

Brooks wrote the supporting role of Garrett Breedlove for Burt Reynolds, who turned down the role because of a verbal commitment he had made to appear in Stroker Ace. "There are no awards in Hollywood for being an idiot", Reynolds later said of the decision.[3]

The exterior shots of Aurora Greenway's home were filmed at 3060 Locke Lane, Houston, Texas. Larry McMurtry, writer of the novel on which the screenplay was based, had received his M.A. at Rice University, a mere three miles from the home. The exterior shots of locations intended to be in Des Moines, Iowa and Kearney, Nebraska were instead filmed in Lincoln, Nebraska. Many scenes were filmed on, or near, the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.[4] While filming in Lincoln, the state capital, Winger met then-governor of Nebraska Bob Kerrey; the two wound up dating for two years.[5]

MacLaine and Winger reportedly did not get along with each other during production.[6][7][8][9] MacLaine confirmed in an interview that "it was a very tough shoot ... Chaotic...(Jim) likes working with tension on the set."[10]

On working with Nicholson, MacLaine said, "Working with Jack Nicholson was crazy",[11] but that his spontaneity may have contributed to her performance.[12] She also said,

We're like old smoothies working together. You know the old smoothies they used to show whenever you went to the Ice Follies. They would have this elderly man and woman – who at that time were 40 – and they had a little bit too much weight around the waist and were moving a little slower. But they danced so elegantly and so in synch with each other that the audience just laid back and sort of sighed. That's the way it is working with Jack. We both know what the other is going to do. And we don't socialize, or anything. It's an amazing chemistry – a wonderful, wonderful feeling.[9]

MacLaine also confirmed in an interview with USA Today that Nicholson improvised when he put his hand down her dress in the beach scene.[13]

American Film Institute (nominations):

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • Aurora: "Would you like to come in?" Garrett: "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes."
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)

A sequel to the film, The Evening Star (1996), in which MacLaine and Nicholson reprised their roles, was a critical and commercial failure.

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