The American family at the center of Swedish filmmaker Niclas Larsson’s directorial debut, Mother, Couch, doesn’t understand one another to such an extent that they could all be speaking different languages—except they aren’t.
An adaptation of Jerker Virdborg’s novel Mamma i Soffa, the mystery begins with Mother, an 82-year-old woman (Ellen Burstyn), who makes herself comfortable on a couch in a furniture showroom, decides to stay, and refuses to tell her adult kids why. All she’ll say is that it has something to do with a dresser to which only she has a key, so they set out to find it.
Oldest son Gruffudd (House of the Dragon’s Rhys Ifans), 55, doesn’t seem too concerned, but Dave (Ewan McGregor, most recently of A Gentleman in Moscow), 48, works himself into a tizzy, to the dismay of his wife (an underused Lake Bell). Though he insists his marriage is fine, the prickliness between the two suggests otherwise, not least regarding a promised beach trip for their young daughter. (Larsson never states the setting, but the film was shot in Charlotte, North Carolina.)
When their chain-smoking sister, Linda (a blond Lara Flynn Boyle in her first role since 2020’s Death in Texas), arrives, she tries to call 911 for assistance, but Dave talks her out of it. Instead, they bring their mother the pills and Idaho Spud chocolate bars she requests, though Dave worries she might be planning something problematic with the pills—which turn out to be vitamins. Although she occasionally gets up from the couch, Mother doesn’t leave the store for most of the film.
Salesclerk and store-owner’s daughter Bella (Taylor Russell, from Luca Guadagnino’s cannibal love story Bones and All) offers to help, even letting Dave spend the night in the store. As the two share the dinner she prepared, he tells her that he and his siblings all have different fathers, which explains their differences in appearance and accents. Though she’s considerably younger, Larsson suggests a sexual tension; and while Russell is a charming presence, Bella edges toward Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl territory, which contrasts with her father (F. Murray Abraham as twins Marco and Marcus), who is far less accommodating.
As Dave—the family peacekeeper—spends more time talking to his mother and siblings, he comes to realize that everything he thought he knew about them was wrong, at which point things turn briefly violent between them before segueing into something stranger and more surreal. Once life returns to “normal,” Dave solves the mystery of the dresser, though it isn’t clear whether the cataclysm that preceded it was all in his head. Comparisons to the work of Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, and P. T. Anderson would not be misplaced, though Larsson doesn’t handle the tonal shifts as adroitly.
Mother, Couch is about as odd as the title suggests, with fine acting from the cast—including Lara Flynn Boyle, who is even more egregiously underused than Lake Bell. There’s a hint of comedy that never quite lands, and the drama doesn’t hit as hard as it might. Niclas Larsson’s first feature, after several shorts, isn’t a complete misfire, but it’s mainly for devoted Ewan McGregor fans, since none of the other characters register as strongly—not even the mother on the couch.
What kind of film series would this narrative fit in?
Mother, Couch would pair well in a showcase of Ewan McGregor’s or Ellen Burstyn’s work, or in a themed series on surreal family dramas and literary adaptations.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Larsson’s English-language adaptation of Jerker Virdborg’s Mamma i Soffa could enrich courses on Scandinavian literature in translation, adaptation studies, contemporary film narrative, and even psychology or family-systems classes examining dysfunctional dynamics on screen.