Heads will be left thoroughly scratched by this rather bewildering curio, a rambling yet not entirely ineffectual comedy-drama about a fractured family forced together by unusual circumstance, starting out somewhat of this world before falling headfirst into surrealist fantasy. Affection for Mother, Couch! might be amplified by the recent phenomenal success of Everything Everywhere All at Once, another film using quirky, fantastical elements to tell the story of a family unit in crisis, but even the many, many hardcore fans of this year’s best picture winner will struggle to hold on until the end here, on a rickety runaway train hurtling towards disaster.
Its passengers at least seem blissfully unaware of their fate. The crackerjack ensemble gives it their all, almost enough to save a script written with half the confidence with which it is performed. Ellen Burstyn, who has shown an impressive commitment to amplifying new, independent voices in her older years, plays the mother of the title, sat on a couch in an unusual vintage furniture store, refusing to get up. Her sons, played by Ewan McGregor and Rhys Ifans, and daughter, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, all try different tactics to get her to leave, aided by Taylor Russell’s accommodating store-owner’s daughter. Writer-director Niclas Larsson, making his feature-length debut, has assembled a dream cast (also including the forever under-utilised Lake Bell and F Murray Abraham, fresh off an Emmy-nominated White Lotus bump) but they’re constantly running too far ahead of him and his messy, malformed script, lumbered by a withholding opaqueness that intrigues before it starts to annoy, a mystery box one will be content to leave unopened.
