Mother, Couch Review: Even a stellar cast could not save this Existential Misfire

Mother, Couch is a 2023 comedy-drama film based on the 2020 novel Mamma i soffa, written by Swedish novelist Jerker Virdborg. The movie, a Lyrical Media production, premiered back in September 2023 at the Toronto International Film Festival and boasted a stellar cast, headlined by Ewan McGregor.

However, the Niclas Larsson directorial did not receive the best reviews, and currently has a 6 rating on IMDB, with the following official synopsis:

“Three children are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store.”

Featuring a 90-minute runtime and a number of stellar actors including Rhys Ifans, Taylor Russell, Ellen Burstyn, Lara Flynn Boyle and F. Murray Abraham, Mother, Couch did not quite receive the kind of praise one would expect, after giving one look at the cast. Here, we explore why.

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Mother, Couch Review: The comedy-drama suffers due to a poor script

The movie itself deals with a hilarious concept. The story begins when Mother, played by Ellen Burstyn, decides to sit down on a couch at a furniture store, and refuses to move. The store employees Marcus and Bella, played by F. Murray Abraham and Taylor Russell, attempt to displace Burstyn’s character, and upon failing to do so, decide to call her family.

Mother’s family includes her eldest son Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans), her other son David (Ewan McGregor), his wife Anne, played by Lake Bell, and their three children, which includes Linda, the eldest daughter.

What follows is a coming-of-age journey as they delve into the reasons why Mother seems to have given up on her life, albeit at her advanced age. The movie itself delves into various existential schools of thought and the struggle to convince Mother that there is still a lot to live for.

On one hand, we see Mother deliver a pessimistic outlook, claiming that she simply wants to conclude her life in a comfortable position, sitting on the couch. However, her sons David and Gruffudd do their best to convince her otherwise, leading to a back-and-forth that exposes a range of familial conflicts and tragedies.

Despite the somewhat dark narrative, the movie employs the use of dark humor to keep things entertaining, with Ewan McGregor’s performance arguably the shining light in Mother, Couch. He is seen attempting to bring life to a difficult script that does not quite manage to translate its source material’s humor to the big screen.

Furthermore, the movie also struggled due to its failure to help viewers relate and seems to be lacking coherence as the narrative proves to be one-dimensional. Furthermore, the family dynamics bring forth a range of problems, with the relationship between the siblings proving to be unengaging and almost forced.

Further, Mother, Couch also struggled with various characters not undergoing enough development, as the motives of the Mother itself failed to generate the kind of effect that fans may have expected.

Hence, while a stellar cast is seen in action, Mother, Couch struggles with its narrative mainly due to the way the characters were written, as the Swedish portrayals did not quite aptly resonate in the otherwise English-language film.

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Hence, the movie was only able to manage a meagre 6 rating on IMDB, with Rotten Tomatoes allotting it a poor 38% overall score. Mother, Couch has not yet been released on streaming but can be bought separately on platforms such as YouTube, Apple TV, and Vudu.