While Season 48 of Saturday Night Live was cut short by the writers strike in May, it’s looking like the iconic late-night show will be set for a full Season 49 this winter, and it could get underway soon.
16.09.2023 - 16:29 / variety.com
J. Kim Murphy What happens when an immovable object meets a fatigued force that keeps whacking its head against said object in defeated frustration? That’s the question proposed by Niclas Larsson’s debut feature, “Mother, Couch.” Executive produced by and starring the once-boyish, now often forlorn Ewan McGregor, the film follows David, a frumpy middle-aged family man whose mother (Ellen Burstyn) plants herself on an old couch in the storage room of a furniture outlet, flatly refusing to vacate the premises.
Though Larsson builds from the increasingly existential dilemma in striking ways, “Mother, Couch” finds itself caught running in place before grasping for sentimentality in its final minutes. The central kerfuffle kicks off as David surveys the far-flung outlet Bob’s Furniture, tagging along with his older brother, Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans).
The dim swamp of a business lays out an absorbing, homely stage for the drama, with awkwardly arranged floor plans and dusty stacks of boxes matching the emotional clutter that David has accumulated by overexerting himself through decades of affirmation-seeking among his family. As the screws tighten on him, more relatives enter David’s orbit, who hope to help him resolve the situation but provide some unwelcome reminders of his own lifelong sense of alienation.
As with the ascending chords of Christopher Bear’s harsh, plinky score, Larsson directs “Mother, Couch” as an unforgiving climb, with David battered around by others until his will to hold things together reaches a breaking point. McGregor makes for a compelling punching bag, at first showing small but acute chinks in temperament until it all unspools at once in unattractive, soul-baring fashion.
While Season 48 of Saturday Night Live was cut short by the writers strike in May, it’s looking like the iconic late-night show will be set for a full Season 49 this winter, and it could get underway soon.
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