When a middle aged man goes through a mid life crisis, what else is he going to do but return home to mother? In another one of his fun satirical pieces on life as he sees it, Brooks returns home to try to find himself through establishing a different kind of relationship with the woman who gave him birth. But there's a difference between mothering somebody under the age of 20 and being there for somebody over 40, and as I have found out in my own personal experience, sometimes going home for long periods of time, whether out of a financial need or to take care of someone on their own, can have a variety of effects on both parties.Being Debbie Reynolds' first leading role in two decades on screen, there was a lot of excitement from her large cult following, and she delivered the goods. She's basically a quiet woman, dignified yet set in her ways. She has a chunk of cheese in her refrigerator that son Albert Brooks tells her tastes like an old boot, and serves him the protective ice on the top of the sherbet which gives him another minor flaw to make fun of as he gets to know his mom all over again. They are very respectful to each other, and at times, the niceness becomes quietly deafening. They go shopping, and unknowingly treating him like a child causes Brooks to react in a way that brought up laughs on screen but in reflection, I could never imagine doing to my own mother.There will be mixed reactions to each of the incidents that occur in their hopefully temporary reunion, especially when Brooks learns that mom has a friend with benefits. I think that Brooks went above and beyond reality in his spoof of middle aged sons and their still vibrant widowed moms, and this is his view of that type of relationship that not many people will identify with. I had thought of sharing this with my own mother when I came home to stay with her through the winter after my father died, as knowing she was a fan of Ms. Reynolds' thought she might enjoy it. But considering the circumstances, I changed my mind, and put on "Molly Brown" instead. Debbie's "Mother" here is not of the June Cleaver/Carol Brady school of parenting, but indeed Debbie was certainly unforgettable playing this part, deserving all the accolades she received for the role.

I had heard of this movie when it came out in 1996, I heard that it was good, but never got around to seeing it. Until tonight, with my wife, on Netflix streaming movies. It is a very good movie.Written and directed by Albert Brooks, he also plays the lead role of John Henderson, Science Fiction author living in Los Angeles. He is just coming off his second divorce, and now working on his next book, but he feels "blocked." When he talks to his mother, who lives in Saucilito , he always comes away with a feeling that she doesn't really like him. So one day he decides, he doesn't ask, he will go live with his mother for an indefinite time to get sorted out. His mother is Debbie Reynolds who is just perfect in her role as Beatrice Henderson, John's mother. She is sweet but doting, as mothers often are, and their conversations seldom have a satisfying conclusion.Things are complicated by John's younger brother, Rob Morrow as Jeff , who seems to have an ideal relationship with his wife and with his mother. So John is dealing with both issues, his mother and his brother.SPOILERS: One evening when mom is out on a date John sees a box in the closet, takes it down, it is filled with notebooks of mom's writings from way before the kids came along. The stories were very good. John figured out, mom was mad because of John, when he came along she had to discontinue her writing and be a mom. But now that they both had this figured out, they could get on with their lives. And, as the movie is ending, John meets a fan, a nice single lady, and mom is at the computer, starting to write again. Her first story is about a man who moves in with his mother.

Albert Brooks seems to have made a career out of writing, and starring in, successful small films about a man (played by Brooks) who has some self-esteem issues. By small films I mean they can be shot in any city, don't require special effects, and use very good actors but ones who are not fantastically expensive at the time of the filming. I usually find his movies enjoyable, but not "rolling in the aisles with laughter" funny. (Very few shows cause me to laugh out loud, and fewer crack me up the way some of Alec Guinness' classic comedies did.)This film is no exception. It is not the funniest or wittiest film of our time, but it is funny, witty, insightful and points out the humor of the human condition. In this case the story is about a writer (Brooks) who has recently been divorced, again, and is trying to understand why his marriages, and relationships with women in general, have been so unsuccessful. He realizes that the common factor in his marriages is that he marries women who are not supportive of him; they don't see him as a successful author. He comes up with the idea that his problem with women stem from his relationship with his mother (played delightfully by multi-talented Debbie Reynolds), who always finds fault with him but dotes on his younger brother (played by Rob Morrow), a sports agent with a wife and children. So he decides to try an experiment of moving back into his old room in his mother's house to try to learn more about why they interact the way they do.Woody Allen also writes comedies that are strong on character, but Allen seems to me to be on a higher tier, with more complex characters and deeper situations. I don't see Brooks as the West Coast Allen.

Albert Brooks plays the son.Debbie Reynolds plays the mother.The son, science fiction writer John Henderson, moves back home to his mother Beatrice Henderson.And the reason this grown up man does so is because he feels like he should do so after two failed marriages.He thinks after that experience his chances for a successful relationship would be better.Albert Brooks directed, wrote and acted the lead in Mother (1996).He's terrific in the movie as is the legendary Debbie Reynolds playing the mother.Rob Morrow, who's still very well remembered as Dr.Joel Fleischman in the great 90's series Northern Exposure, does very good job in this movie playing the brother Jeff.Lisa Kudrow of Friends does a small part as Linda, the blonde John goes out with.She's just wonderful.Paul Collins is brilliant playing the Lawyer.John C. McGinley plays Carl in the movie and he's very good.Mother is a terrific movie that combines comedy and drama in a fine way.It's mighty funny when John makes his room look like exactly the same it looked like when he originally lived there.I think we all should take trips to the past every now and then.Maybe we learn something about ourselves.