Ordinary People, 1980.
Directed by Robert Redford.
Starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, M. Emmet Walsh, Judd Hirsch, and Elizabeth McGovern.
SYNOPSIS:
Robert Redford’s directorial debut, the Oscar-winning drama Ordinary People, arrives on Blu-ray for the first time, courtesy of the Paramount Presents line. Redford oversaw a new 4K transfer that was used for this high-def release, and the studio included two new interviews with star Timothy Hutton and novelist Judith Guest, whose debut novel was adapted for the silver screen.
Every so often, I’m surprised by the fact that a highly successful movie has yet to appear on Blu-ray, despite the format’s nearly 16-year-old history. Recently, Ordinary People was the subject of my surprise when I found out that Paramount was gearing up to finally release the film on Blu-ray. While it’s one of those Oscar winners that was a big deal in its day (it won four major Academy Awards), its impact seems to have unfortunately faded a bit in the 42 years since its release.
Sure, big-budget spectacles grab a lot more eyeballs these days (I’m not immune to that, having given Spider-Man: No Way Home a spin before this movie), but sometimes it’s nice to slow down and appreciate a story that unfolds at its own pace, with quiet character moments meant to be digested without a lot of fanfare accompanying them.
Directed by Robert Redford in his directorial debut, Ordinary People (based on the novel of the same name by Judith Guest) introduces us to the Jarretts, an upper-middle-class family in Illinois who seem to have a picture-perfect life on first glance: father Calvin (Donald Sutherland) has a successful career, which allows his wife Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) to be a stay-at-home mom with their son Conrad (Timothy Hutton, who became the youngest person to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar).
However, there’s extreme stress underneath the Jarretts’ seemingly peaceful life: their older son Buck recently died in a sailing accident, and Conrad has just returned home after a four-month stay in a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. Beth seems to have favored Buck over Conrad and desperately tries to put a façade of normality over their family, resulting in strained relationships with her husband and surviving son. Meanwhile, Conrad is struggling to reconnect with friends and tries to regain some optimism by dating another student, Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern).
Calvin prods his son into seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Tyrone C. Berger (Judd Hirsch), and Conrad reluctantly agrees, hoping it will help him deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder and feelings of survivor’s guilt. Conrad also has a hard time with his mother, who at one point reveals that she was more upset about blood on her towels than she was about her son’s suicide attempt. Calvin does his best to moderate the conflicts between his wife and his son, but he tends to take Conrad’s side more often in an attempt to keep him from again struggling with his mental health.
All of those strains push and pull on the family dynamic, eventually leading to multiple cathartic moments that enable the Jarretts to move forward with their lives while also fundamentally changing their relationships with each other. Ordinary People is a film that’s probably best appreciated by those of us with spouses (or ex-spouses, or committed partners) and children. It’s also very much a product of its era, with a cast of white people dealing with very middle-class problems. If neither of those things get in your way and you haven’t seen the movie before, I encourage you to give it a watch.
In addition to launching Redford’s directorial career, Ordinary People gave us a side of Mary Tyler Moore that hadn’t really been seen before, given her previous history as a sitcom star, in addition to propelling Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern to new heights in their acting careers. Judd Hirsch also had a chance to display his dramatic chops, given his stature at the time as one of the stars of the sitcom Taxi.
Paramount remastered the movie from a 4K film transfer overseen by Redford and included two new interviews on the platter. While Ordinary People is worthy of a much more in-depth home video release, given its stature, that ship has sailed in the modern era, in which copious amounts of bonus features aren’t typically seen as worthwhile investments by major studios. It’s too bad Paramount didn’t put resources into this movie before streaming took hold, when high-definition releases were still worthy of lavish special editions.
However, the movie looks great, with a presentation that’s likely as close to the way it originally looked in theaters, and the new extras are worth a watch for fans of the film. The first one is an 11-minute interview with Hutton in which he looks back on his experience making the movie, including the way Redford isolated him on set to help him get into the character’s head without him realizing it.
The other interview is a 5.5-minute one with Guest, who looks back on her initial disbelief when Redford tried to contact her about turning her debut novel into a movie. She also recalls that she worked more with screenwriter Alvin Sargent, who won an Oscar for his adaptation.
It’s a shame the two interviews aren’t longer, but what’s presented here is still worth watching. The theatrical trailer rounds out the disc.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★★★★/ Movie: ★★★★
Brad Cook
