Terms Of Endearment (1983)
The Film: An independent minded young mother, Emma (Debra Winger), clashes with her own, overbearing and controlling mother, Aurora (Shirly Maclaine).
Why So Serious? The film deals with issues of parenting and how Emma’s upbringing by her interfering Mother affects how she raises her own two sons.
There are many scenes that tug the heartstrings, as Emma and Aurora clash heads and reconcile, as Emma’s husband commits adultery and the young family struggles to pay the bills.
A scene in a supermarket shows Emma unable to pay the total, and deciding what to put back, her young son offering his chocolate bar back to the checkout girl, stating “I don’t need it”. Bless.
As it goes in this type of film, Emma goes and gets cancer, and as she begins to fade in her hospital bed, she and Aurora talk through their relationship.
Aurora helps Emma do her make-up so she can say goodbye to her sons, and in a standout scene, runs round the hospital screaming at the nurses to give her daughter some painkillers to ease her suffering.
Emma passes away while her mother and husband sleep alongside her. Aurora has two new charges to raise, and a new outlook on motherhood.
Will It Make You Cry? As Emma says a tearful goodbye to her two young sons, you’ll be going through the Kleenex faster than a teenage boy with an internet connection.
Will It Uplift You? Apart from a few laughs courtesy of Jack Nicholson’s retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove, this is no Slumdog Millionaire.
Cynicism Score: 8 – Debra Winger died in order to make Shirley Maclaine a better mother? Wouldn’t a chat with Dr. Phil accomplish the same?
Next: Steel Magnolias
Comments
TheTingler
Jun 24th 2009, 10:31
I think Jude wins the prize for sheer "life-is-s***-and-people-are-worse"-ness. Requiem For A Dream at least has the get-out clause of "drugs are bad" to fall back on. Most of the rest are just normal soap operas. Some excellent metaphors in there by the way TF!
Alert a moderator
ChroniC2805
Jun 24th 2009, 10:50
What about bridge to terabithia or marley and me both of those films had me crying like a baby
Alert a moderator
ashley.russell
Jun 24th 2009, 11:24
Changeling should definitely be in there, its nothing but police corruption, dead children, missing children, scary fraudulent children, a mental hospital and a serial killer
Alert a moderator
durden
Jun 24th 2009, 11:26
well,i wouldn't call them miserable but the only films that made me cry were dead poets society and october sky...don't think any of the above have done that...
Alert a moderator
fluffulike
Jun 24th 2009, 11:41
I never really got over bambi's mum dying! Only movie I ever really cried in.
Alert a moderator
Lindz28
Jun 24th 2009, 13:50
In the valley of Elah is the most depressing film I've seen. Tommy Lee jones and Susan Sarandon's son dies. Then their other son goes missing. He's found not just dead, but brutally stabbed, burnt and chopped up into little bits. Its like the ending for Million Dollar baby but for the WHOLE film :(
Alert a moderator
BennettsVest
Jun 24th 2009, 15:03
The Deer Hunter isn't exactly a shining beacon of cheer. I think my mate summed it up best when he said "That was superb, but I never want to see it again." Then he shot himself.
Alert a moderator
thefilmguru
Jun 24th 2009, 16:15
I am sorry but youve missed a biggy with The Elephant Man - i mean that film is so depressing he gets abused nearly the whole film. Scenes with that security guard never fail to be depressing with how he is. It ends on a sort of high in that hes content, but really - it is still DEATH. The Elephant Man has to be in there.
Alert a moderator
pazozo
Jun 24th 2009, 17:04
is Jude entirely based on Jude the Obscure? It's on my reading list for English for 'Love through the ages' but if it's anything like the film I think I'll give it a skip
Alert a moderator
tachikoma83
Jun 24th 2009, 17:55
Where is "Grave of the Fireflies"? that film almost killed me.
Alert a moderator
magicwings
Jun 24th 2009, 18:10
Two words: The, and Wrestler.
Alert a moderator
Sonic
Jun 24th 2009, 22:51
THANKS FOR THE SPOILER WARNING FOR SOPHIES CHOICE YOU STUPID CUNTS!
Alert a moderator
indran
Jun 25th 2009, 0:40
I'm putting in my vote for The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover and Martyrs as two of the most horrifyingly downbeat films ever made. Really stay with you after watching them. And of course Requiem For A Dream. You just can't feel good watching that.
Alert a moderator
imaginarium
Jun 25th 2009, 14:25
Brokeback Mountain. Love that can never be properly fulfilled, they can never be together, they have their biggest argument, spilling all the frustration and regret, right before one of them dies, alone, for the very reason they couldn't be together.
Alert a moderator
Catchphrase
Jun 26th 2009, 13:47
You missed Boys Don't Cry.
Alert a moderator
obi500
Jun 26th 2009, 14:40
I know a lot of people may not have seen it but studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies is the only film thats made me cry.
Alert a moderator
xotitanicox
Jun 27th 2009, 18:21
What Moulin Rouge? I cry every time I watch it.
Alert a moderator
WileyWasabi
Jun 27th 2009, 21:18
How could you leave off My Life??? The movie starring Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman, couple trying to get pregnant, and when she does they find out he has terminal cancer, so he makes a bunch of videos for their unborn son, because it is expected he'll not live to see him born. Total sobfest.
Alert a moderator
VictoriaRusso
Jul 17th 2009, 22:40
I guess the author made differences between movies that made people cry and depressing movies. So totally agree on Requiem for a dream, great art piece after which it's quite hard not to suicide. Another thing is Bamby, just because it's kinda made for kids, but awfully depressing! And of course Brasil. There's nothing worse than a happy ending that never really happened.
Alert a moderator
apbgreen
Aug 4th 2009, 16:21
'Million Dollar Baby'. A film so relentlessly depressing that swallowing your own tongue seems somehow comforting.
Alert a moderator
Apathygrrl
Aug 6th 2009, 12:00
Totally agree with Requiem. One of the most bleak movies I have ever seen. I'd just like to mention The Green Mile & The Mist. Both are so painfully depressing that I can't ever watch them again.
Alert a moderator
MrSmith70
Nov 17th 2009, 22:17
yeah i agree, requiem for a dream is such an excellent film but the unconfortabiliity of watch it is extreme...... harrowing at the mind with sara's hallucination, felt like getting sick. churning of the stomach with harry's decomposing arm 'pre-op', felt like getting sick. aronofsky's best.......
Alert a moderator
CatBear
Aug 15th 2011, 17:24
I'm pretty sure that when you wrote depressing, you meant s**t? Other than Requiem it's more like a list of the worst, soap-opera like films of all time. How about some good, but depressing films; My Life Without Me, The Laramie Project, Mean Creek...
Alert a moderator