On iTunes this movie was called Mother, Couch when I purchased it for rental. It was renting at only $1.99, which was a minor miracle as I rarely pay less than $5.99 for a current year iTunes rental these days, $4.99 if I'm lucky, or $3.99 if it's a movie from the past. Mother, Couch seems to be the most common way to list the title around the internet.
There are two possible semantic meanings to the title when listed this way. I prefer the one that suggests they are being introduced to each other, like "Mother, Couch. Couch, Mother." I include the second half of the introduction just to illustrate exactly what I mean. I like this one because indeed, the story revolves around an 82-year-old woman (Ellen Burstyn is actually turning 92 in three weeks) who sits down on a couch in a furniture store and then refuses to leave.
Or there is the simpler "This is a movie about two things, and the two things are listed with a comma so you know they are not part of the same thing. One is a mother. The other is a couch."
In the movie itself, though, the title appears as Mother, Couch! in the opening credits. I thought it might have been Mother Couch!, but I went back this morning and saw that indeed the comma was present. Which I was glad to see, because otherwise that would mean someone made up a comma out of whole cloth.
The possible semantic meaning of this is less clear. It could be the same as meaning 1 above, only it indicates the excitement of this introduction, particular on behalf of the mother. (We have to assume that the couch, as an inanimate object, is indifferent to the introduction.) Or it could be that the mother is ordinary, but the couch is extraordinary, which is certainly her impression of it. Though that is not spoken in so many words, nor is it clear this particular couch has any particular value to her other than as a symbol of arriving at a moment in time where she is not going to budge anymore, and this happens to be where he was physically located at the time she passed this point of no return in her head.
But then on IMDB it is just listed as Mother Couch, with an acknowledgement of the original title Mother, Couch -- which is still not accurate from the film itself. Mother Couch offers a new possible interpretation in terms of meaning, which is similar to "mother country." Like, this is the couch from which all the characters -- who include three grown children -- originate. Or more literally -- but then I suppose more figuratively -- she is the mother in a family of couches, and they are all baby couches, albeit grown baby couches.
So then I started to think about other possible punctuations that would give us other meanings.
The one I like best here is mother! Couch. And the reason for starting it in lower case is that it evokes Darren Aronofsky's mother!, another film with an exclamation point that befuddled people. It's appropriate because as this film goes along, it leaves behind some of the shackles of realism to provide us with material that is more chaotic and symbolic, or just projections of what the characters may be seeing in their minds, which is akin to the most common mode of mother! Then there's the connection that the last time I saw Burstyn as anguished as this on screen was when she was in Aronofsky's classic Requiem for a Dream.
Not that mother! Couch makes much sense considering our ordinary grammatical rules, but even less sense would be Mother Couch,. Yes, that would be ending the title with a comma. There I suppose the comma would serve sort of the same function as an ellipses, which suggest there is more to say on this topic -- and in watching the film, you would know for sure that there is.
So how about going outside the punctuation marks already provided?
Mother? Couch. - This would be asking the question if this character is a mother, and then returning the answer that no, this character is a couch.
Mother Couch? - This would be questioning whether this is indeed the couch from which all the younger couches emerged, or do we have a case of mistaken identity.
Mother? Couch? - This would be where both the mother and the couch got lost in the woods, and as the kids are searching for them, they are calling out their names to see if they will answer.
(Side note: I always think it's funny when people are searching for other people in the movies and they have to individually call the names of each person they are searching for. Let's say there are four lost children. You have to rotate through calling each of the names, as though a lost child hearing this call would not respond unless their own name had been called. Maybe the parents just don't want to have to explain, after the fact, why one of the kids did not have their name called. Do the parents love that kid less than the other kids?)
Mother; Couch - The couch gives us additional understanding of the mother, but the two concepts don't have a close enough literal connection to be separated by something so simple as a comma.
Mother > Couch - It is better to have a mother than it is to have a couch.
Mother "Couch" - It is only a symbolic couch, and this is its mother.
¿Mother Couch? - The same movie, but dubbed into Spanish.
On my blog and in all my lists, I have decided I will refer to this movie as Mother, Couch!, with the last comma only for the structure of this sentence, and only the first comma and exclamation point as part of the title. That's how it appears in the movie.
However, when I put the label in on my blog, I will have to go with mother couch! -- which I do not see as the actual listed title anywhere -- because Blogger interprets the comma as a separation of two different labels, not part of a single label that happens to contain ambiguous punctuation.
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