Ordinary People (A or 4/4 stars)
'Ordinary People', helmed by 1st-time director Robert Redford, won 4 Academy Awards including Redford for Directing, Timothy Hutton in Supporting Actor, Screenplay, and Best Picture of 1980. It is a sobering drama about family life, marriage, love, loss, forgiveness, & rebuilding. Hutton co-stars as Conrad, a bright, but insecure 17 yr. old choir & swimming team member at high school who has just returned home after months in a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. His father, easy-going Calvin (Donald Sutherland), a lawyer, hangs around him with anxious concern. His mother, icy cold Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), a busy woman in their upper-middle-class Chicago suburb, does all she can to avoid close contact with him.
A trauma has deeply affected the family, and that would be the accidental death of the older son in a boat accident that guilt-ridden Conrad survived. Calvin motivates his son to regularly see a psychiatrist, and so Conrad begins 2 sessions per week with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). Conrad declares that he wants more 'control' of his life; the psychiatrist hones in on his dire family situation. Meanwhile, Calvin & Beth's marriage starts to splinter; he finds her treatment of Conrad to be emotionally volatile, and she blames him for always siding with Conrad against her. Conrad's progress is then halted when Karen (Dinah Manoff), a friend from the psych hospital, commits suicide. Dr. Berger is the one source in Conrad's life to steady him. A blooming relationship with Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern) gives Conrad a boost of self-confidence, too. Drama ensues as Calvin contemplates separating from Beth to see if anything can be salvaged down the road.
'Ordinary People' is a sensitive portrait of a young man struggling to regain his emotional stability after caving to grief & guilt. The plot also works as a penetrating portrait of a hurting family; whose surface calm masks an intense lack of communication & understanding. Director Redford spoke on what he hoped audiences would take away from the movie: "Ordinary People has lots of colors. It is a picture of behavior, about something of depth. It has to do with the family unit, which interests me. And with people who keep their lives in perfect order -- they interest me. It's about the effort to communicate by a young person through the fog of social structures he's raised in. I hope it has a message for their parents. I hope it tells them loud & clear to listen to what their children have to say".
Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her wonderful portrayal of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, but Mary Tyler Moore could've easily won, as well, for her astonishing, complex portrayal of an embittered, selfish, repressed wife & mother who doesn't know how to get out of her own way to thaw her heart and love those closest to her. Her Beth is the epitome of that stern Mona Lisa-smilin' socialite who outwardly pretends that all is okay behind the fake facade. We've known Moore as the girl-next-door for so long in her hit 1970s TV show, so seeing her acting prowess here is just amazing to see. Speaking of amazing: where the HECK was Donald Sutherland's Oscar nomination as the good-natured, loving, but struggling father.
Timothy Hutton is also fantastic and, the Academy agreed, giving him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; well-deserved, however odd it was that he was basically a lead character who voters placed into supporting. I greatly admired Judd Hirsch's attentive psychiatrist. Elizabeth McGovern is lovely as Conrad's girlfriend, Jeannine. And character actor M. Emmett Walsh impresses as the swimming coach. You know, many cinephiles believe that Martin Scorsese's blistering Raging Bull {starring Robert DeNiro as Jake LaMotta} should've won Best Picture, but I agree with the Academy & audiences {this film made over 9x its production budget} that Ordinary People's searing, heart-tugging slice of America's turbulent suburbs was tops.
A trauma has deeply affected the family, and that would be the accidental death of the older son in a boat accident that guilt-ridden Conrad survived. Calvin motivates his son to regularly see a psychiatrist, and so Conrad begins 2 sessions per week with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). Conrad declares that he wants more 'control' of his life; the psychiatrist hones in on his dire family situation. Meanwhile, Calvin & Beth's marriage starts to splinter; he finds her treatment of Conrad to be emotionally volatile, and she blames him for always siding with Conrad against her. Conrad's progress is then halted when Karen (Dinah Manoff), a friend from the psych hospital, commits suicide. Dr. Berger is the one source in Conrad's life to steady him. A blooming relationship with Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern) gives Conrad a boost of self-confidence, too. Drama ensues as Calvin contemplates separating from Beth to see if anything can be salvaged down the road.
'Ordinary People' is a sensitive portrait of a young man struggling to regain his emotional stability after caving to grief & guilt. The plot also works as a penetrating portrait of a hurting family; whose surface calm masks an intense lack of communication & understanding. Director Redford spoke on what he hoped audiences would take away from the movie: "Ordinary People has lots of colors. It is a picture of behavior, about something of depth. It has to do with the family unit, which interests me. And with people who keep their lives in perfect order -- they interest me. It's about the effort to communicate by a young person through the fog of social structures he's raised in. I hope it has a message for their parents. I hope it tells them loud & clear to listen to what their children have to say".
Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her wonderful portrayal of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, but Mary Tyler Moore could've easily won, as well, for her astonishing, complex portrayal of an embittered, selfish, repressed wife & mother who doesn't know how to get out of her own way to thaw her heart and love those closest to her. Her Beth is the epitome of that stern Mona Lisa-smilin' socialite who outwardly pretends that all is okay behind the fake facade. We've known Moore as the girl-next-door for so long in her hit 1970s TV show, so seeing her acting prowess here is just amazing to see. Speaking of amazing: where the HECK was Donald Sutherland's Oscar nomination as the good-natured, loving, but struggling father.
Timothy Hutton is also fantastic and, the Academy agreed, giving him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; well-deserved, however odd it was that he was basically a lead character who voters placed into supporting. I greatly admired Judd Hirsch's attentive psychiatrist. Elizabeth McGovern is lovely as Conrad's girlfriend, Jeannine. And character actor M. Emmett Walsh impresses as the swimming coach. You know, many cinephiles believe that Martin Scorsese's blistering Raging Bull {starring Robert DeNiro as Jake LaMotta} should've won Best Picture, but I agree with the Academy & audiences {this film made over 9x its production budget} that Ordinary People's searing, heart-tugging slice of America's turbulent suburbs was tops.