“You can’t handle the truth!” Sorry, but that line gets so stuck in my head whenever I see a Jack Nicholson film. Back to the former Best Picture winners we go this week; and although this week’s film Terms of Endearment (1983, Paramount) doesn’t actually contain the famous movie quote above, it does feature Jack Nicholson. His character, Garrett Breedlove, a retired astronaut, nearly steals the show in a film which examines several human relationships, but mostly focuses on the one between a rather uptight mother, Aurora (played by Shirley MacLaine), and her more free-spirited daughter, Emma (played by Debra Winger). Terms of Endearment also boasts solid performances by Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, and John Lithgow–all of whose characters are just quirky enough to give a comedic edge to a film that is widely known as a sure-fire tearjerker.

Adapted from the 1975 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry (who also wrote the 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove), Terms of Endearment won 5 Oscars for its 11 nominations. It nearly won the “Big Five.” Lacking a contender in the Best Actor category, the film instead brought Jack Nicholson his second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actor. It also took home statuettes for Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), Directing for James L. Brooks, Best Actress for Shirley MacLaine, and Best Picture. It failed to win Art Direction, Sound, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Actress in a Leading Role for Debra Winger, and Actor in a Supporting Role for John Lithgow. Terms of Endearment rode the waves of its Oscar success and later spawned a sequel (book and film), The Evening Star (1996), for which MacLaine reprised her role as Aurora Greenway.

When we started looking at the films of the 1980s, we mentioned a bit about how the Reagan years were pretty conservative in nature–yet were still full of anxiety about the ongoing Cold War, obsession with material goods, and questions about the meaning of life and how to find true happiness. Terms of Endearment exhibits a lot of these 80s characteristics, but also challenges the conservatism of the times by bringing up issues like adultery, abortion, and drug use. The end of the film, which I won’t discuss just quite yet in this post, is especially odd, I think, in light of its time period. But it is partly because of these raw and challenging topics that Terms of Endearment is particularly, um, endearing to many people, I think; for the struggles of the film’s characters, with all their human imperfections, makes them seem more real–and hence, their suffering affects the movie’s viewers more. But we’ll talk further about that in a couple of days…

For more thoughts on Terms of Endearment and its significance, please check out the full post a little later this weekend!