by Chris Marshall:
Ever since I watched it a couple of days ago, I’ve been
trying to decide whether or not the title Ordinary
People is ironic or meant in earnest. If it’s serious, then I think that
Robert Redford (well, I guess the author of the novel would be more to blame)
doesn’t have a very good idea of what ordinary people are like. The
protagonists are wealthy, live in a giant house, had a maid at one point, and
so on. But maybe they meant that these guys have problems just like ordinary
people do.
Either way, these folks certainly do have problems. Plenty of them, as a matter of fact. Before the
movie even starts, the elder son dies in a boating accident, a tragedy that
serves as a catalyst for the most, if not all, of the events in the film. Oh,
and the younger son (Timothy Hutton) attempted suicide and was placed in a
mental hospital, which also took place prior to the evens in the movie.
So… yeah. If these are the problems we don’t see, then you can probably imagine that the situations we do
aren’t exactly going to be a barrel of laughs.
Timothy Hutton was on the boat the night of the accident,
and he has a nasty case of survivor’s guilt. He blames himself for his brother’s
death, even though he didn’t really have anything to do with it, other than
happening to be there when it occurred. He’s messed up in the head because of
it, and understandably, his parents, played by Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler
Moore, are pretty messed up too.
Although he resisted for a long time, Hutton finally agrees
to visit a psychiatrist to help him work through his problems. The shrink,
played by Judd Hirsch, is not all a stereotypical movie version of a
psychiatrist. He’s portrayed very positively, and he really does have a
positive effect on Hutton’s life.
I don’t remember them ever appearing on screen at the same
time, but having both Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch in the same film made it
feel almost like watching Nick at Nite
when I was a kid. You know, a very dark, depressing version of Nick at Nite where they take out all the
jokes and replace them with death and despair. Kind of like the modern
incarnation of Nick at Nite, come to
think of it.
Moore, though, is almost totally unrecognizable when
compared to her television days. She looks the same, sure, but her character
here is as far removed from Laura Petrie or Mary Richards as you can get in
terms of personality. Beth Jarrett is a cold, bitter woman, almost evil in some
ways. There’s playing against type, and then there’s playing against type.
Sutherland, on the other hand, is the foundation of the
family, and he tries desperately to keep them together. He sometimes seems
overly soft, but he means well. The problem is that his son’s problems run so
deep that it sometimes becomes impossible to do anything about them.
 |
| Hirsch could never solve the mystery of Latka Gravas. |
Conrad, the son, played by Timothy Hutton, can be
frustrating at times, but he’s not unbelievable. His performance was extremely
convincing, leading to Hutton, at 20, becoming the youngest ever winner for
Best Supporting Actor, a record that still stands today. Even at his worst, Conrad
still manages us to make us care for him. He might be acting completely
irrationally, but that spark of hope still exists.
I thought Ordinary
People was a surprisingly good film, even if the plot is the sort of thing
I read over and over again in my undergraduate adolescent literature class. But
I suppose it’s such a popular storyline because just about everyone can
identify with it, maybe not to the extent of the Jarrett family, but at some
level.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, though, it’s
again the performances that make the film stand out. It’s well written and
directed[1],
but without the acting skills of Sutherland, Moore, Hutton, and Hirsch, it
easily could have become a typical Lifetime
movie. It stands out thanks to the talents of its performers.
And by the way, did you know that Judd Hirsch appeared in two Best Picture winners? In another 21
years, he will have a minor role in A Beautiful Mind. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s two more
appearances in Best Picture winners than Katharine Hepburn, James Cagney,
Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Lauren
Bacall combined.
This means nothing, of course, but it is something I think
about. Why do I get to see Franklyn Farnum[2]
six times but not a single sighting from the aforementioned group? It just
seems so unfair. No offense to Judd or anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment