Divano di famiglia

I must say at the outset that I wanted to like this film, because symbolic, metaphorical, low-budget, chamber-drama-like works are very close to my heart. Unfortunately, Niclas Larsson (who is responsible for such great works as... well, yeah) hasn't the faintest idea how to direct a film or write a script, because the end result is so fake, incoherent, wannabe-deep, boring and so frustratingly roundabout that anything the film was trying to say (not that there haven't been a million films made about grief work and letting go...) is completely meaningless because it just babbles, stammers, and then urinates under itself.

I have no idea how Larsson was able to blackmail these stars into appearing in this botched film experiment, perhaps kidnapping their child or poisoning them with the venom of a rare species of South American snake for which only he has an antidote. In any case, it is certain that "Mother, Couch" will not ennoble anyone's CV. But one thing must be acknowledged: it's a perfect film for snobs, who are ready to project everything and its opposite into the infertile, barren nothingness at any time, if it makes them feel that they are more than the average cinema-goer, despite their mediocre intellect and awful taste.

Surreal yet drab drama "Mother Couch" is another pretentious art-house bore that tries so hard to be clever with its analogies & hidden meanings that it ends up as incomprehensible tosh... wasting in this case a fine & under-rated cast. When bitter old Ellen Burstyn refuses to leave a run-down warehouse-like furniture store run by Taylor Russell (terrific) & F Murray Abraham, her kids Ewan MacGregor (with wife Lake Bell), Rhys Ifans & Lara Flynn Boyle get involved... resulting in old (and new!) wounds opening. This debut of writer (adapting Jirker Virdborg's novel 'Mamma I Soffa') / director Niclas Larsson won't have many hungering to see what he serves up next. Hard pass.

'An elderly mother visits a furniture store, and refuses to leave a couch that she sits on'. If, after that synopsis you still go ahead and watch, then you should be open minded enough to accept what follows?

Great acting performances by everyone involved, especially Ewan McGreggor, who gives possibly the performance of his career. The dialogue, whilst sometimes bland, is suited to the family dynamics of the three siblings and their mom, in what is an increasingly bizarre scenario. What does it all mean? Who knows, but it engrossed me to the end. You either take the journey or you hop off at the first stop. The ending is unexplained, surreal, maybe dream like, and undoubtedly allegorical ( of what? I have my own view but its likely wrong so will not explain here).

Mother Couch gave me a similar vibe to 'His Three Daughters' which I also saw very recently and which also split viewers into two camps.

I came here to see if the ratings were in the 7s or had reached 8. It's not even in the 6s. Proof audiences, especially American audiences, have become so dumbed down that even the movie "Idiocracy" flies over their heads.

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I have no idea what this film was about and neither will you. The storyline goes like this, three children who go and find their mother sitting on a couch in a furniture store and tries to get her to leave the store but she doesn't want to leave. And from there, you're left to think that the story is actually going to lead up to something spectacular or tragic to unfold and it literally does neither. From the beginning to the very end, you don't know what the message in the film is actually relaying. It's just a bunch of incoherent scenes meshed together leading up to a climax that leaves you pondering wtf did I just watch, I kid you not. Excellent cast but a very incoherent story that literally made no sense.