A flavoursome blend of darkly surreal comedy, magical-realist fantasy and dysfunctional family psychodrama, Mother, Couch! is a frustratingly muddled but admirably ambitious debut feature from Swedish writer-director Niclas Larsson. Freely adapted from Jerker Virdbor’s 2020 novel Mamma i Soffa, the fable-like story mostly takes place inside a giant ramshackle furniture store. Ewan McGregor, who also has an executive producer credit, is first among equals in a stellar ensemble cast that also includes Ellen Burstyn, Taylor Russell, Rhys Ifans, Lara Flynn Boyle and F. Murray Abraham.
Filmed in North Carolina but set in a more universal, purposely vague North American locale, Mother, Couch! has a knowingly grungy, downbeat, indie-movie look. World premiered in Toronto, it screens in the New Directors strand in San Sebastian this week. Early reviews have already drawn parallels with Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), another family crisis story disguised as a reality-bending comedy adventure. Echoes of Darren Aronofsky and Charlie Kaufman are also discernible here, especially in Larsson’s use of glum surrealism and sudden tonal shifts. How much of these jarring effects are deliberate, and how much the result of film-making inexperience, is a moot point. But patient, open-minded viewers will enjoy the ride, even if the destination proves disappointing. A starry cast and puzzle-driven suspense plot should help secure audience interest beyond the festival circuit.
The unnamed mother of the title is played with an imperious swagger by venerable screen queen Burstyn. Evidently confused, possibly suffering from dementia or depression, this flinty matriarch has defiantly planted herself on a couch in a huge family furniture store, refusing to leave, giving no explanation why. This creates major anxiety for her middle-aged son David (McGregor), who is already on a tight time schedule with his own family commitments, though it does not seem to worry his louche older half-brother Gruff (Ifans), who is more interested in the pretty young storekeeper Bella (Russell). This unorthodox family therapy session is complete with the arrival of half-sister Linda (Boyle), a chain-smoking bad-ass vamp who keeps threatening to call 911, and shows limited patience for her mother’s intransigence.
While these semi-estranged half-siblings struggle to shift their immovable mother, David is sporadically summoned by his wife (Lake Bell) for daddy duties, resulting in a fraught father-daughter episode at the beach. Pressed into staying overnight at the furniture store to safeguard his mother, he finds himself befuddled by Bella’s flirtatious mind games, then further confounded by her affable father and chainsaw-wielding uncle, odd-couple twins both played by the perennially magnetic Abraham. Following a series of wounding revelations from Burstyn’s cold-blooded mother, who tells David she never wanted children and even tried to have him terminated during pregnancy, the film’s final act takes a wild swerve into heavily symbolic floods and a cryptic, apocalyptic banquet scene.
Mother, Couch! drops a ton of teaser clues and opaque hints that never really coalesce into a clear narrative whole. Are we watching an absurdist farce in the tradition of Beckett or Ionescu? A feverish hallucination unfolding inside David’s head? A satirical vision of purgatory as a giant Kafkaesque furniture warehouse? A darkly allegorical fable about family power dynamics? Multiple interpretations are possible, but Larsson’s meandering plot is mostly driven by David’s bumpy evolution from rejected, neglected man-child to autonomous adult. Along the way there are painful home truths and violent confrontations, plus a dash of heavy-handed Freudian symbolism that even Freud himself might consider a little too on the nose. And by nose, I obviously mean penis.
Even if it leans more towards ambitious failure than knockout debut, Larssen’s tonally wobbly tragicomedy still has much to recommend it, particularly the heady chemisty between that rich multi-generational cast. It is certainly refreshing to see McGregor having fun with a rumpled, downtrodden everyman instead of his usual blandly boyish hero roles. Relishing a rare chance to use his native Welsh accent, Ifans radiates appealingly seedy, earthy comic energy while Boyle’s trash-talking bleach-blonde diva is a pure joy. More screen time for her marginal character would have been very welcome. And while Burstyn remains a formidable heavyweight screen presence at 90, it is relative novice Russell who almost steals the film from everyone else with her wry, ambiguous, mischievous performance. Mother, Couch! may be less than the sum of its parts, but these are great parts.
Director: Niclas Larsson
Screenwriter: Niclas Larsson, from Mamma i Soffa by Jerker Virdbor
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans, Taylor Russell, Ellen Burstyn, Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham
Cinematography: Chayse Irvin
Editing: Carla Luffe
Music: Christopher Bear
Producers: Sara Murphy, Alex Black, Ella Bishop, Pau Suris, Katrin Pors
Production companies: Fat City (US), Film i Väst (Sweden), Snowglobe Film (Denmark)
World sales: Charades, Paris
Venue: San Sebastian International Film Festival (New Directors)
In English
96 minutes
