Review of Ordinary People (1980) by Gordon T — 09 Nov 2009

An ultimate suicide-movie from 1980. A boy's brother drowns and the the boy attempts to commit suicide because he and and his mother feel he's the one to blame. The drowned-boy was the mother's favorite child and the boy's father remains fairly aloof and concentrated on extroverted concerns unaware of his surviving son's inner pain.

After the suicide-attempt, the parents put the boy in a psychiatric hospital where he is befriended by a suicide-survivor co-patient and his psychologist. The boy's nagging question is why he was "chosen" to survive the boating accident over his brother, as his brother's life was "worth more" to his parents than his life.

Director Robert Redford added a scene to the movie that wasn't ion the book where the parents are attending a play where two parent's are sitting at a kitchen table talking about ordinary things signifying that we're an audience of Ordionary People seeing a movie about Ordinary People who are in turn watching a stage-play about Ordinary People.

Ordinary People certainly bears a timeless theme written as a novel in 1978 and filmed in 1980. Timothy Hutton from TAPS (released a few years later) plays the boy. Ordinary People is an Academy Award Winning film that got the entire country to embrace the subject of suicide and demonstrated to ordinary people that "ordinary people, in order to remain ordinary, must 'hide' hurts and disappointments in some kind of 'dark closet' or under some 'thick carpet' in order to function and remain 'ordinary'".

Very Powerful film: I am remembering it more as I write.

Do people--people who really do hide things and run from things that hurt them--when they see Ordinary People really see themselves?

I think that when people read stories or see movies that are supposed to make them look at themselves don't really see themselves in the movie or story at all; I mean if someone is mean and hurtful to others in real life sees a movie about someone being mean and hurtful, the "mean-hurtful someone" would only sympathize with the hurtful character.

Ultimately, it depends on the person.

Powerful film . . . even 29 years later.

29 years since 1980 and The Summer of Empire Strikes Back.

Unreal.