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ORDINARY PEOPLE (REVIEW)

by MaryAnn Johanson
Thu, Mar 04, 1999
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Play That Funk-y Movie

Ah, the rich. They’re not happier than the rest of us — they’re just more
comfortable in their misery.

Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and Calvin (Donald Sutherland) seem to have it made in
their affluent Chicago ’burb, a world of touch football on the lawn and long
driveways and cocktail parties people dread going to. Things would be perfect,
in fact, if tragedy hadn’t shown Beth’s true colors. They’ve lost their perfect
teenage son to an accident, and the one they’ve got left, Conrad (Timothy
Hutton)… well, let’s just say Beth lost her favorite child and is left with the
runner-up, and his inability to deal with his grief is trying her patience.

Ordinary People, Robert Redford’s directorial debut, is a talky drama about
people who can’t talk to one another. Conrad, a high-school student recovering
from a suicide attempt after his brother’s boating accident, is all but ignored
by his parents. Too-cheerful Calvin pretends that things are just hunky-dory,
and when Conrad tries to talk to Beth, she changes the subject or pushes him
away — in one painful scene, she turns her back on him to chat and gossip with a
friend on the phone.

Conrad tells his shrink, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch), that he liked the hospital
where he spent four months after he slit his wrists because “nobody hid
anything” there. On a first date with Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern), she notices
the scars on his wrists and asks him, “Why’d you do it?” — he tells her that no
one’s ever asked that before, and it’s not hard to believe.

Beth is heartlessly cold toward her son. Calvin’s attempts to help Conrad she
calls “indulging” him; when Conrad expresses his anger and grief she says he’s
“walking all over” her and Calvin. Her husband soon comes to realize that’s she
always been this way: stubborn, unemotional, detached.

Characters like Beth have become clichéd in the almost twenty years since
Ordinary People, but Moore did it first and best with an understated performance
that defines her character by all the things she isn’t — affectionate, warm,
“motherly.” Also notable is the natural, emotional performance from Hutton. It’s
unfortunate that he hasn’t had the opportunity to be this good again.

Exploring in an excruciatingly frank way the one emotion we’d probably all like
to avoid — grief — Ordinary People is an uncomfortable film, one that leaves you
aching for its characters. Expect a bit of a funk afterward.

[reader comments on this review]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oscars Best Picture 1980
unforgettable movie moment:
Conrad finally vents his anger at his brother’s death and faces his self-blame,
exploding with rage at Dr. Berger.

previous Best Picture:
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
next Best Picture:
1981: Chariots of Fire

go> the complete list of Oscar-winning Best Pictures

Categories based on a book, classics, drama, Oscar best pictures, reviews, teen
Tags Chicago, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth McGovern, Judd Hirsch, Mary Tyler
Moore, Ordinary People, Oscars, Robert Redford, Timothy Hutton

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Ordinary People (1980)
directed by Robert Redford

US/Can release: Sep 19 1980
UK/Ire release: Mar 05 1981

MPAA: rated R
BBFC: rated 15

viewed at home on a small screen

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