‘Mother, Couch’ Review: Ewan McGregor In A Kafkaesque Family Drama Set In An IKEA Universe Where Ellen Burstyn Becomes A Couch Potato – Toronto Film Festival
deadline.comTake a bit of Kafka, throw in some Buñuelian realism, add a dose of John Cheever (circa The Swimmer) and then hand the recipe over to a first-time feature-making Swedish director with fond memories of a childhood spent in IKEA furniture stores, then put together an A-List cast, and you essentially have Mother, Couch.
A World Premiere this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, this truly surreal, metaphysical mind trip will not be to everyone’s taste, but the cast, including a couple of Oscar winners, will make it go down easier even if some of it more closely resembles a thespian exercise at the Actor’s Studio, rather than a major motion picture.
It certainly is watchable, and writer/director Niclas Larsson makes the most of his adaptation of Jerker Virdborg’s book, Mamma I Sofa which centers on a seemingly normal outing to a furniture store but turns into a nightmarish nervous breakdown for 48-year-old David (Ewan McGregor), son of his mother (Ellen Burstyn) who is only identified that way, and who has decided to plop herself on a green couch on sale in a department of the upper floor and will not get up, despite his most valiant efforts to get her to leave.
Along the way his siblings, even his own kids, join in including older brother Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans) and unimpressed sister Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle).
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