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| Calvin Jarrett (Donald Sutherland) and his son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) navigate the messy aftermath of a tragedy. |
Release Date: Sept. 19, 1980. Running Time: 124 minutes. Screenplay: Alvin Sargent. Based on the Novel by: Judith Guest. Producer: Ronald L. Schwary. Director: Robert Redford.
THE PLOT:
Conrad Jarrett (Timothy Hutton) spent four months in a mental hospital following a suicide attempt, brought on by guilt at surviving the boating accident that claimed the life of his brother, Buck. Conrad is now back at home and at school. His parents, Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), are determined to pretend as if everything is absolutely normal, and Conrad strives to follow their lead.
Except everything isn't normal. Conrad tells his new therapist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch), that anytime he feels anything, he only feels lousy. He and his mother are unable to communicate at all, and she seems to resent his mere presence. Calvin attempts to keep the family together the only way he knows how: by defusing or ignoring every point of conflict.
And as the tension escalates, all three of them find themselves increasingly emotionally adrift...
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| Calvin and his wife, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), at the theater. Calvin's reactions set the tone for his entire character arc. |
CHARACTERS:
Calvin: He is introduced having a miserable time being bored by an awful play. But after the show, he holds his own opinion back - and on seeing that his wife and friends enjoyed it, he pretends that he agrees. This marks his approach to pretty much everything. He avoids any hint of conflict, seemingly believing that everything will be fine as long as no actual arguing happens. The clearer it becomes that this isn't true, the more lost he seems. Sutherland excels at showing Calvin bottling up emotions behind a surface-level affability, a surface that inevitably cracks.
Beth: I've seen Conrad's mother labeled as a narcissist, but I think that's too simple. There are moments in which she tries to reach out to Conrad, and other bits in which we see her blindsided by her own pain. But she only shows her pain when alone, and even then only for a few seconds at a time. She declares that the family should deal with its problems in the privacy of their own home - but she doesn't even want to deal with it then, so it breaks through at the worst possible moments. Mary Tyler Moore's casting is brilliant. An actress known for playing the perfect wife and mother is cast as someone whose insistence on projecting exactly that image ends up making her the villain of the story.
Conrad: Calvin muses that people thought the outgoing Buck was more like Beth, but that he knows it's actually Conrad who takes after her. He's right. When Dr. Berger asks why he's decided to start therapy, Conrad tells him that he wants to be more in control - the same goal that Beth seeks to apply to her life. He blames himself for the family's current situation, even as he resents his parents - His mother for her coldness toward him, and his father for refusing to see the way their family has changed. Timothy Hutton's Oscar winning performance is excellent. In his early scenes with Berger, he shifts in his chair and fidgets, seeming uncomfortable in his own skin. In other moments, he stares off into space, getting lost in the past.
Dr. Berger: "A little advice about feelings... Don't expect it always to tickle." The psychiatrist urges Conrad to experience his own feelings, telling the boy that he's "not a big fan of control." When Conrad starts snapping angrily at him, Berger encourages him, actively applauding as his patient hurls invectives. Judd Hirsch, best known as a comedy actor, gives a restrained performance, though a few wry deliveries provide moments of levity. The climactic final session between Berger and Conrad delivers both in terms of emotion and drama.
Jeanine: A young Elizabeth McGovern plays Conrad's love interest, a pretty student in his choir class who clearly nurses a major crush on him. When he finally works up the courage to ask her on a date, she happily agrees. The date happens at a bowling alley, even though she warns that she's a terrible bowler. She's the first person outside the hospital to ask about his suicide attempt, and he seems relieved to have someone his own age to talk to about it... though he becomes upset when a group of enthusiastic boys disrupts their conversation and Jeanine laughs at their antics.
Karen: Dinah Manoff makes an indelible impression in a single scene. She was a fellow patient at the hospital, and her friendship clearly meant a lot to Conrad. She arrives for their lunch together smiling and enthusiastic, appearing at first glance to have her life together. As they talk, the mask slips. She seems unable to sit still, and she evades any conversation about therapy or even of their time at the hospital. She says she stopped seeing doctors because "the only one who can help you is you," parroting her father's words - and Beth's own declaration that the family should resolve its problems in the privacy of their own home. By the time their lunch ends, it's clear that despite her smiles, she's actually in far worse shape than Conrad.
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| Conrad has an emotionally intense therapy session with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). |
ORDINARY PEOPLE VS. RAGING BULL:
It's become all but accepted wisdom that when Ordinary People won Best Picture of 1980, that represented a snub to Martin Scorsese's more deserving Raging Bull. Well, at the risk of getting myself thrown into movie fan jail... I don't necessarily agree.
Raging Bull is the more artistic film, certainly, and Scorsese's direction has a rawness that wrings everything from that script. Even so, I find more emotional resonance in Ordinary People. I also find Robert Redford's direction to be just as perfectly suited to this story as Scorsese's was to his film. The color palette is mostly muted, and Redford favors stationary shots over camera moves.
Even on the rare occasions that the camera does move, it glides forward or back with a slowness that seems designed to avoid drawing attention. Images aren't flashy, but the framing is precise. In short, the movie's overall look reflects the emotional states of the characters - muted, cautious, polished, repressed. I find the result to be highly effective.
Honestly, I think either movie would have been an equally suitable choice. But at a time when changing family dynamics had become a mainstream concern, Ordinary People was timed better to pick up the award. As I noted in my last Best Picture review, it is no coincidence that Kramer vs. Kramer and this film were back-to-back winners.
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| Beth reacts to Calvin's emotional turmoil. |
OTHER MUSINGS:
Like Kramer vs. Kramer, this is a movie that improves upon its (very good) source material. Unlike Kramer, changes from the book are few and minor. Screenwriter Alvin Sargent inserts a couple of new scenes, such as a strained family photo, and he wisely prunes side stories (notably reducing Jeanine's role) to focus on the family. However, the new material slips seamlessly into the novel's structure, and much of the dialogue is word-for-word from the book.
The movie is elevated by several small visual touches. Beth, a completely remote figure in the novel, has flashes in which we see her reactions - walking into Buck's room for a moment, or stealing a glance at her husband after an argument, or zoning out while Christmas shopping. There's also the way Calvin bends and hunches, actor Donald Sutherland using his height to show a man who subconsciously tries to make himself smaller to defer to others.
Speaking of Sutherland, he was the only of the four main actors who was not nominated for an Oscar, in what I think is a staggering snub. The same year that Jack Lemmon was nominated for doing a bog standard "Jack Lemmon performance" in Tribute, Sutherland's powerful and authentic work here was passed over. It's an example of one of the Academy's worst tendencies with acting nominations: Restrained performances consistently get overlooked in favor of showy ones.
Dr. Berger's "not a big fan of control," and both book and movie emphasize the importance of giving emotions freedom. The prevailing view of the time is Beth's: Maintain a calm and pleasant surface, and save (or ignore) drama when safely behind closed doors. But the family is at its most ordered in the early scenes, and we can see that all three are miserable, individually and as a group.
It's only when Calvin and Conrad start to express themselves that they become stronger. Calvin interrogates his wife about why she changed his wardrobe on the day of Buck's funeral: "We were going to our son's funeral, and you were worried about what I wore on my feet." After that scene, he begins to stand straighter. Meanwhile, despite a couple of blow-ups, Conrad genuinely enjoys his new relationship with a potential girlfriend. It's Beth, who tries to bury her feelings, who is in the most pain as the story closes, with her final, wordless scene showing her looking on the brink of collapse. A silent and solitary collapse, of course, because reacting in front of others would be messy.
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| A family photo turns into a moment of unexpected tension. |
OVERALL:
Robert Redford's first film as director married a restrained and precise visual approach with the emotional repression of its characters. The story itself has aged well. The film may have been released at a time when the public was particularly concerned about changing family dynamics, but the material will always be relevant, from the different ways people deal (or fail to deal) with strong emotion, to survivor's guilt, to the impact on a family of parental favoritism.
The performances are uniformly excellent, and screenwriter Alvin Sargent is wise enough to retain the structure and even much of the dialogue of the novel, with his handful of new scenes fitting seamlessly within the story. The family and its issues feel authentic and relatable, and the film carries emotional weight as a result.
Rating: 9/10.
Best Picture - 1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
Best Picture - 1981: Chariots of Fire (not yet reviewed)
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