All of the intriguing ideas and stellar performers found in this film are watered down in a story that is far too blunt in spelling everything out.
This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.To get it out of the way, there is an inescapable element of writer-director Niclas Larsson’s debut feature Mother, Couch that feels increasingly similar to Beau is Afraid.
Though carried well by Ewan McGregor, who takes on what should have been his most ambitiously abstract film since 2005’s Stay, it is constantly in search of something more which is made so explicit that any evocative emotions slip through the fingers.
What is 'Mother, Couch' About? The basics of this involves the troubled David who has discovered that his mother is not willing to leave a furniture store where she has sat down on a couch. His brother Gruffudd and sister Linda seem largely ambivalent if a bit annoyed about this, bringing to the forefront the vast differences in their personalities.
'Mother, Couch' Offers Too Many Answers The desire for stability in David's own family and connection with his siblings who seem worlds away from him are all more important than anything that takes place in the furniture store. Even when F. Murray Abraham pops in to inject some chaos as Bella’s father, this is all window dressing for Larsson’s interest in the internal.
This isn’t to say the entire feature is a total waste, especially with the performances all hitting the right notes. The trouble is just that we come to understand nearly everything to such a point that there is little to actually reflect on once it reaches its close. It is an open-and-shut experience that doesn’t linger long in the mind, making you wish they’d just bought that damn couch so they could then ship themselves over to a more ambitious film along with it.
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