Ordinary People [VHS]
by Robert Redford
![Ordinary People [VHS]](/images/Ordinary-People-VHS-6300216977-L.jpg)
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch, M. Emmet Walsh, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy HuttonDirector: Robert Redford
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Original recording remastered
Running Time: 124 minutes
Release Date: 1998-02-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Paramount
Studio: Paramount
VHS Movie Reviews of Ordinary People [VHS]
Movie Review: Redford definitely gets the North Shore
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a absolutely wonderful and convincing film about affluent middle America and how a family confronts a tragedy that is outside of its normal control. It is a story of change that is thrust upon people who are extremely secure in their environment, who are not used to things they cannot immediately master, dismiss, or anesthetize by a cushion of money and supportive relationships.
The story centers on a sensitive and gifted younger son, who is caught in an existential anxiety that he cannot control. Timothy Hutton delivers what I think is the finest performance of his career, his every gesture displaying the turmoil he is feeling inside. He cannot feel anything, he complains, and is heading for another breakdown. He deserved the Oscar for it. But Donald Sutherland is also great as his father, who is struggling to cope with issues he has never confronted. Finally, in perhaps her most subtle role, Mary Tyler Moore is the mother; afraid of genuine emotion, she had long been content to live in a comfortable predictability, long accustomed her role and milieu. They are all reacting to unspeakable pain in their own ways, revealing their strengths and capacities.
The final character in the film is Chicago's North Shore, a community that must be experienced to be believed. Redford portrays it with a sensitivity that is astonishing and not in the slightest condescending in spite of his many comical touches. I grew up there and still feel it is more or less home, though I have long since left. The place is one of the most affluent yet least cultured places in the US. Its residents feel entitled to a natural continuation of their family patterns: get a good job, probably related to finance in Chicago, and live a comfortable life of local prestige and style. I do not mean to imply that their lives are superficial or empty, just largely unquestioned and unquestioning, preoccupied with the generation of wealth and perpetuation of their "class standing" (for want of a better term). However, if something disrupts this cocoon - personal tragedy, economic upheaval, or just not fitting in - they are forced to leave their comfort zone, often with devastating results but also with the potential to grow.
The plot of the film is about the son, Conrad, as he begins to see a wonderful psychiatrist, who is completely straight with him as well as caring. They develop a powerful relationship, a space where Conrad can be himself and experiment with a new way of being. While the father is open to it, the mother refuses to recognize Conrad's struggle. The results are surprising as the equilibrium of the family shifts fundamentally.
Redford's film raises all of these issues with perfect emotional pitch. I watched it with my daughter (14); our family had lived in the area for a couple of years - kind of a sabbatical from our home in Europe, to be near my parents. She saw places we knew, recognized the types of people, and also learned about psychiatry (my father was a psychiatrist). We were both moved to tears by the story and the outstanding acting and talked a lot about the film afterwards. It is true art about what I have long viewed as an artless place.
Warmly recommended. With the many subtleties in it, this film can be watched many times.
Summary of Ordinary People [VHS]
Robert Redford made his Oscar-winning directorial debut with this highly acclaimed, poignantly observant drama (based on the novel by Judith Guest) about a well-to-do family's painful adjustment to tragedy. Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland play a seemingly happy couple who lose the older of their two sons to a boating accident; Timothy Hutton plays the surviving teenage son, who blames himself for his brother's death and has attempted suicide to end his pain. They live in a meticulously kept home in an affluent Chicago suburb, never allowing themselves to speak openly of the grief that threatens to tear them apart. Only when the son begins to see a psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch) does the veneer of denial begin to crack, and Ordinary People thenceforth directly examines the broken family ties and the complexity of repressed emotions that have festered under the pretense of coping. Superior performances and an Oscar-winning script by Alvin Sargent make this one of the most uncompromising dramas ever made about the psychology of dysfunctional families. There are moments--particularly related to Mary Tyler Moore's anguished performance as a woman incapable of expressing her deepest emotions--when this film is both intensely involving and heartbreakingly real. No matter how happy and healthy your upbringing was, there's something in this excellent film that everyone can relate to. --Jeff ShannonDrama VHS Video
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