Review of Coming Home (1978) by Alexander R — 15 Nov 2011

When Oliver Stone makes a Vietnam movie, it always resolves around the person going to the war, but what happens to the loved ones who have to stay behind? Well "Coming Home" by Hal Ashby is just that movie. It focuses on Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) who's husband Bob (Bruce) is sent to Vietnam. She stays behind and ends up doing volunteer work at the V.A. hospital. During her time there, she meets Luke (Jon Voight) a wounded marine who was also her former high school classmate. They start having a relationship which leads to later events in the film.

This is a nice change of pace from other Vietnam related films and it also happens to be the best movie that I've seen in the film studies class I'm taking. The acting is great, there is a reason why Fonda and Voight won Oscars, but it's sometimes hard for me to believe that Jon Voight was a good actor back then, because now he's kinda crazy and the last few movies he was in were Bratz, National Treasure 2 & Transformers.

Not much else to say except that it has a lot of heart and the ending, while personally unexpected, was emotionally powerful.