Mother, Couch (2024)
“I never wanted any children, David”
“It was all very simple. They were looking for a dresser.
Blood wouldn’t spill until later”
So begins Mother, Couch the debut feature length film from Malmö born actor and now film director Niclas Larsson and based upon the 2020 Swedish novel Mamma i soffa by Jerker Virdborg. The spoiler free nut would seem, after a first watch that intrigued me into watching a film I had zero knowledge of prior to watching last night and, if I’m honest, pulled into watching based purely on the title of the film and the presence of both Ewan McGregor and F Murray Abraham in starring and cameo roles respectively, is a film bathed in loss and childhood regret, family and forgiveness and moving on with a life (or lives) spiralling out of chaotic control and of letting go of past baggage and grievances and coming to terms with the ghosts of the past that linger long into adulthood and even one sat on a couch in a gigantic furniture store and who will only leave on her terms.
The beauty of this quirky, off kilter, often surreal and absurdist film are the avenues to interpretation left open to the audience. I saw every character bar one as almost ghosts within their own respective stories and whilst this is no doubt far from the truth or even the intention of the respective writer and director, I saw wildly different characters appearing and disappearing within the vast open expanse of this out of town factory sized furniture store or flitting between rooms, scurrying along corridors and fractured conversations coming and going as often as the characters themselves within a maze of rooms that, deliberately or not, resembled domestic settings rather than a warehouse factory housing that all important couch.
So who are these supposed ghosts in their own stories?
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In the centre of a maddening maelstrom of Coen Brothers style madness all around him is “David” (Ewan McGregor) and whilst he “isn’t getting divorced” he’s so stressed and anxious and losing his mind at his mother’s stubborn refusal to leave the furniture store he’s missed an important children’s birthday party, distant from his wife and befuddled that his brother “Gruffudd” (Rhys Ifans) is recently married and chain smoking sister “Linda” (Lara Flynn Boyle) is bitterly angry at anyone and everything and can only suggest they “call 9–11” at every chaotic opportunity. Whilst “Mother” (Ellen Burstyn) grows spoiler free here into the film along with the prized couch and the magnificent F Murray Abraham plays not one but two characters, it falls to his screen daughter “Bella” (Taylor Russell) to infuse some much needed humanity and calm serenity to an otherwise roller coaster of a ride through the coming to terms with familial ships passing in the night, on a stormy sea, and in a raging hurricane of growing self-absorbed despair.
Perhaps that’s the nut right there: self-absorbed. There isn’t a great deal to like in any of these characters bar Bella yet I smiled along with each and every one of them and cried where someone should have. But that certain someone isn’t the someone they reminded me of as they were far too inside their own angst to see a way out. David is frazzled and doesn’t know which way to turn. His brother is funny, out-going, “spunky” even and much admired, and his sister is off the rails and seemingly at war with the world.
Then there’s a mother and a couch and a whole host of her own guilt, and three children thrown back together to make sense of the senseless amid their own ghosts of loss, death, regret and forgiveness.
Not quite as funny as it could have been but highly, highly recommended.
Here’s a final word from the first time director:
“It’s certainly not for everybody… I’m feeling really good about it all! I mean, it’s too bad the critics aren’t on my side, but I’ve been travelling with the film for a year now and I know this movie has meant a lot, for a lot of people. Just the other day this 12-year-old boy — whoever let him into the theatre is questionable — told me he wanted to become a director after watching the film. I mean, that’s that… that’s all”.
Niclas Larsson interview with “Man About Town”
Niclas Larsson interview with "Man About Town"
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Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.