Directed by Robert Redford, the 'ordinary' people in question aren't actually that ordinary. I think that's the whole point. On the surface, they are your typical well-heeled American family. The house is big but not flashy, the dad (Donald Sutherland) is a tax attorney and the mum (Mary Tyler Moore) is the model of a suburban housewife.
Yet, as is so often the case with these suburban family dramas, it's the children who see through the middle-class smokescreen of respectability. Conrad (Hutton) is still suffering from the loss of his brother in a boating accident, and refuses to take part in his mother's increasingly desperate charade. Partly as a result of this, and partly because Conrad is, in her eyes at least, the lesser son, the relationship between the two of them is strained. As the veil of normality slips, all three of them have to truly come to terms with the tragedy that they have so far avoided.
It's a slow, brooding film that gradually reveals the extent of the trauma that Conrad is dealing with. Ground-breaking at the time for it's frank treatment of mental health issues and suicide, Ordinary People is a hugely influential work. It's clear to me now where The Perks of Being a Wallflower got most of its inspiration from, along with elements of Donnie Darko, Good Will Hunting and innumerable others. There are, of course, hints of Holden Caulfield in Conrad, yet Conrad has far more genuine cause for a breakdown that Caulfield did.
In a film full of sad stories, the saddest is Conrad's mother, Beth. Come the end, it seems that she is the only one without any foreseeable chance of redemption. Perhaps this is because she was hit the hardest by Buck's death, and has the toughest journey ahead of her. It's an incredible bit of acting from from Mary Tyler Moore when, at the end, her mask of emotional repression slips. And it's an unusual scenario - the mother fleeing her family rather than the father.
As much as I enjoyed Ordinary People, I would still have given the 1980 Best Picture Oscar to The Elephant Man.
Yet, as is so often the case with these suburban family dramas, it's the children who see through the middle-class smokescreen of respectability. Conrad (Hutton) is still suffering from the loss of his brother in a boating accident, and refuses to take part in his mother's increasingly desperate charade. Partly as a result of this, and partly because Conrad is, in her eyes at least, the lesser son, the relationship between the two of them is strained. As the veil of normality slips, all three of them have to truly come to terms with the tragedy that they have so far avoided.
It's a slow, brooding film that gradually reveals the extent of the trauma that Conrad is dealing with. Ground-breaking at the time for it's frank treatment of mental health issues and suicide, Ordinary People is a hugely influential work. It's clear to me now where The Perks of Being a Wallflower got most of its inspiration from, along with elements of Donnie Darko, Good Will Hunting and innumerable others. There are, of course, hints of Holden Caulfield in Conrad, yet Conrad has far more genuine cause for a breakdown that Caulfield did.
In a film full of sad stories, the saddest is Conrad's mother, Beth. Come the end, it seems that she is the only one without any foreseeable chance of redemption. Perhaps this is because she was hit the hardest by Buck's death, and has the toughest journey ahead of her. It's an incredible bit of acting from from Mary Tyler Moore when, at the end, her mask of emotional repression slips. And it's an unusual scenario - the mother fleeing her family rather than the father.
As much as I enjoyed Ordinary People, I would still have given the 1980 Best Picture Oscar to The Elephant Man.
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