When a middle aged man goes through a mid life crisis, what else is he going to do but return home to mother? In another one of his fun satirical pieces on life as he sees it, Brooks returns home to try to find himself through establishing a different kind of relationship with the woman who gave him birth. But there's a difference between mothering somebody under the age of 20 and being there for somebody over 40, and as I have found out in my own personal experience, sometimes going home for long periods of time, whether out of a financial need or to take care of someone on their own, can have a variety of effects on both parties.
Being Debbie Reynolds' first leading role in two decades on screen, there was a lot of excitement from her large cult following, and she delivered the goods. She's basically a quiet woman, dignified yet set in her ways. She has a chunk of cheese in her refrigerator that son Albert Brooks tells her tastes like an old boot, and serves him the protective ice on the top of the sherbet which gives him another minor flaw to make fun of as he gets to know his mom all over again. They are very respectful to each other, and at times, the niceness becomes quietly deafening. They go shopping, and unknowingly treating him like a child causes Brooks to react in a way that brought up laughs on screen but in reflection, I could never imagine doing to my own mother.
There will be mixed reactions to each of the incidents that occur in their hopefully temporary reunion, especially when Brooks learns that mom has a friend with benefits. I think that Brooks went above and beyond reality in his spoof of middle aged sons and their still vibrant widowed moms, and this is his view of that type of relationship that not many people will identify with. I had thought of sharing this with my own mother when I came home to stay with her through the winter after my father died, as knowing she was a fan of Ms. Reynolds' thought she might enjoy it. But considering the circumstances, I changed my mind, and put on "Molly Brown" instead. Debbie's "Mother" here is not of the June Cleaver/Carol Brady school of parenting, but indeed Debbie was certainly unforgettable playing this part, deserving all the accolades she received for the role.
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