Ordinary People (1980)

 

En ganske almindelig familie

I am back after a small hiatus, spent in rainy Italy, ready to get started on the eighties. The first film of this decade is “Ordinary People”.

Considering how much exciting stuff is waiting for me, I was a bit disappointed starting with what looked to be a dull and pedestrian movie and it really is a movie that starts out as a slow and plain movie, but, boy, was I wrong thinking this would be dull and ordinary.

The Jarrett family is an upper middle-class family consisting of mum Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), dad Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and teenage son Conrad (Timothy Hutton). It appears to be a normal family, but something is off, and we learn, slowly, that the elder son Buck has died and that Conrad has recently returned from hospital after trying to kill himself. Beth is trying to make everything look normal and perfect, but Calvin is concerned for Conrad. He just does not know how to approach him. Conrad is feeling miserable. It is clear that the accident hurt him badly, mentally, and he looks like he is about to implode. Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist (or psychologist, it is not entirely clear), Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch) who is able to offer something neither friends nor family can give him, an opportunity to talk about how he feels and open up to the pent-in frustrations. Turns out Conrad feels a lot of guilt for surviving the boating accident that killed his brother.

A lot of the movie is about what happens in the triangle of Beth, Calvin and Conrad. To Beth, all this happening to Conrad is pure sabotage to her perfect façade of a life. She has no interest in opening up for anything messy and whatever happens should certainly stay inside the family. To Conrad, this comes off as a rejection of his feelings and a lack of understanding and interest in what he is going through. He cannot help thinking that she has no love for him and even blame him for Buck’s death. He may not be far off. The dynamic between Calvin and Conrad is better, but Calvin is stuck between the two, letting himself be controlled by his wife and inability to offer Conrad the support he feels he needs. To Beth, Calvin is simply pandering to Conrad instead of taking the firm hand he needs. To Conrad, he is just useless.

Dr. Berger does help Conrad and those scenes are terrific. I almost suspect that this movie was sponsored by a US shrink association as advertisement. Dr. Berger is really good. For Conrad it also helps that he starts seeing a girl, Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern), but as Conrad starts to face his issues, it also cracks up his family. The remarkable thing here is how honest they all get once the facades crack, how much it hurts and how much it is needed.

It is easy to see Beth as the villain and maybe she is, but she only remains so because of her unwillingness to deal with it. Maybe again an advertisement for the shrinks. As a viewer, I never thought in terms of good or bad guys, but just an intense sadness for the issues they are carrying around. The unfolding of that story is one of the most remarkable dramas I have watched in a very long time. Conrad may be the center of attention, but I felt very strongly for Calvin. Watching him face his own situation and realize his priorities, which would and should always be his son, was like watching an epiphany. I felt like giving him a hug.

“Ordinary People” was nominated for six Academy awards and it won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton) and Best Screenplay. On the face of it, this looks like Academy pandering to an intellectual human interest story, but that is only until you actually watch it. It is still early days for me for 1980, but in any year, this would be one of the most interesting movies to watch.   

I strongly recommend “Ordinary People”. It is not nearly as depressive as it sounds, cathartic is more like it, and it feels real like few movies. Watch it.