This cinematic dissection of the Jarretts, an upper middle class family from an affluent Chicago suburb who are trying to deal with the death of their eldest teenage son and the attempted suicide of the younger, is so intimate and comprehensive that you feel you're being let in on something deeply private, not really meant for your eyes. Robert Redford's achievement in his directorial debut is remarkable, mainly because of the unusually authentic performances he extracts from his cast, but also in how acutely he understands and works the mechanisms for telling a story such as this one. The family drama movie will always be one slight misstep away from melodrama and cheap tears, but Ordinary People steers clear of this pitfall, not because it refrains from emotion, but because Redford never becomes too insistent. This is not an easy watch, however. You're asked to sit through and sympathise with a stagnant situation of dysfunctional family relations and suppressed grief. Still, it is constantly rewarding, because you feel you are watching real people and real problems which you may just partake in solving. You need to put in the work together with Conrad and his parents, but despite of this - or perhaps exactly because of it - Ordinary People opens you up and exposes you. Superb performances by the entire cast, but particularly by young Timothy Hutton as the son Conrad and Donald Sutherland as his father, cap off one of the best ever family drama movies.