In Mother, Couch, a woman sits down on a couch and refuses to get up. Why this couch? Why this store? Why won’t she get up? It’s up to her three children to sort out, unless they want to buy the couch and carry her out.
Mother, Couch
Niclas Larsson (director and writer), Chayse Irvin (cinematography), Carla Luffe (editing)
Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans, Taylor Russell, Ellen Burstyn, Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham (cast)
September 9, 2023 (TIFF)
Mother, Couch is an odd film. From the very start, something feels off about the furniture store where Mother (Ellen Burstyn) parks herself on the couch. But is it because the event itself is so strange? Or is the store exuding some type of mystical quality that’s making Mother do this?
Unfortunately, the audience is never privy to these answers. Because Mother, Couch is more interested in asking questions than answering any of them. We learn the three adult children, David (Ewan McGregor), Griff (Rhys Ifans), and Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle), are all half-siblings and they’re somewhat estranged from each other and their mother. Throughout the film, we see that David is the only one making an effort to keep this family together, even while his own may be falling apart. Are we to assume this is why the majority of Mother, Couch chooses to focus on David’s relationship with his mother? But we learn that Griff and Linda were also abandoned by their mother at some point—don’t they deserve some resolution? Some catharsis? Why does David get a monopoly on this?
The audience eventually finds out that Oakbed Furniture is a fantastical place. Is it meant to help people find resolution in their lives? Because David has a markedly different experience in the store than his siblings or his mother have. Does Oakbed Furniture bring families together? Or is there something more sinister? Blood is spilled in the store, after all—as audiences are warned at the start of the film.
But beyond these questions, there are just so many weirdly disturbing things that Mother, Couch does. The slut shaming of Mother is completely uncalled for. There’s one throwaway line about Mother having been pressured into relationships which resulted in these children—isn’t that more of an indictment of her access to healthcare than her sex life? What prudish nonsense is this?
At the same time, Mother, Couch seems to revel in the sexualization of Bella (Taylor Russell), the daughter of the owner of Oakbed Furniture. From the opening scene onwards it’s just so gross to see these past-middle-aged men hitting on a 20-something. When you have only one Black female character, she’s got to be more than the object of every man’s desire and a manic pixie dream girl rolled into one. And Russell is shot in the most male gazey way possible when the men don’t get the same treatment at all. This feels like tokenistic casting; we have to move beyond this kind of sexist filmmaking.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Mother, Couch spends too much time with nothing happening. Conversations start but go nowhere. Everything is implied but nothing is confirmed. And then the ending suggests there was more to the experience of being at Oakbed Furniture than we realized. Shouldn’t the audience get some inkling even if the characters don’t? The ending comes out of nowhere and doesn’t feel at all earned. Worse, it resolves nothing! What was the point of it all, then?
I think the biggest problem with Mother, Couch is that director Niclas Larsson knows much more of what’s going in the film than the audience does. I read an interview with him about this film, and I don’t see the visual connections he does. I’m now wondering whether it was an issue with the way the screen at TIFF was lit. Because I couldn’t see how Mother’s own house and the furniture store were that deeply connected.
Mother, Couch has a stellar cast but they have so little to do. Ifans plays the same type of buffoon he has played so many times before. Boyle is hidden behind a cigarette and a scowl throughout. Burstyn has a few moments to shine but it feels like the majority of her scenes were left on the editing room’s floor.
This film is very clearly a McGregor vehicle. And he acts his heart out. But he’s once again playing the earnest, confused, and responsible half-sibling in a messy family. It’s a repeat of his performance from last year’s TIFF film Raymond and Ray.
I understand that films have to be an experience. That they need to take you out of your comfort zone, even make you uncomfortable. But Mother, Couch was full of tropes and had a general disregard for women, and I can’t abide that, definitely not in 2023. By far the poorest offering I’ve seen at TIFF this year.
