The Big Picture

Ewan McGregor stars in the mysterious
Mother, Couch
in which his mom won’t leave a store couch.
The movie blends comedy, horror and symbolism, and director Niclas Larsson wants to keep audiences guessing.
Larsson shared the movie’s secrets with the crew, but avoided explaining the metaphors in the movie to the public.

There are some movies that are able to grab your attention based on their premise alone. Ewan McGregor’s (Obi-Wan Kenobi) next project Mother, Couch seems like one of those. In the story, he plays a man who goes on a shopping trip with his mother and gets baffled at the fact that the woman suddenly refuses to get up from a certain couch. The more she stays, the more desperate he gets and the more we wonder what is really going on in the story. The movie will have a limited release in July.

There are two big elements that the Mother, Couch trailer highlights. First is the most obvious: why would an old lady suddenly decide that she won’t get up from a couch inside a store? The movie will take us through that journey with David (McGregor), who, little by little, starts suspecting that his mother is acting passive-aggressive in order to force the discussion of family issues. That’s why he ends up recruiting his siblings to come down and try to talk to her – but it doesn’t go well.

The second aspect of the trailer is the suggestion that Mother, Couch can get even more curious as the story progresses. Judging by what we’re shown, what starts out as a comedy may completely derail into a horror-thriller with existential questions and symbolism. In other words, a must-watch. The movie had an early premiere at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. At the occasion, the movie’s director and screenwriter Niclas Larsson talked with Collider about the project and revealed that he likes to incorporate metaphors and magical realism into his work.

‘Mother, Couch’ Director Will Never Explain The Movie’s Mysteries

Additionally, Larsson also told Collider that even though there’s a clear layer of symbolism on Mother, Couch, it doesn’t mean that he’s eager to spell it out for viewers. However, he didn’t hide anything from his crew, and even wrote a book detailing every secret of the movie – but this book will never be released.

“My audience will never read this book. That was a distinction I made because it’s not for the audience. But for my crew, for my creative team, I think it’s a necessity. Clarity is a necessity. I myself, I’ve been a crew member, and I’ve been an actor, and having a director who hides stuff from the crew, I find quite frustrating, and I think it’s actually hiding your insecurities more so. So, I’m like, ‘I know exactly where I wanna go. Why don’t just tell my team where I wanna go and we can, together, go there?’ Because it’s a very complex film, and I needed them to be on par with me in order to spitball ideas of how walls should break and where we going.”

Aside from McGregor, the cast from Mother, Couch also feaures Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist: Believer), Lake Bell (Harley Quinn), Rhys Ifans (House of the Dragon), Taylor Russell (Bones and All) and F. Murray Abraham (The White Lotus).

Mother, Couch will have a limited release on in New York at the Angelika Film Center on July 5 and in Los Angeles at the Landmark Nuart on July 12. Wider release dates are yet to be announced. You can watch the trailer below: