Only Calvin (Donald Sutherland)and Conrad (Timothy Hutton)can motivate the flashbacks that provide the audience with some access to their thought processes, just as only Calvin and Conrad experience the talking cure of psychoanalysis.

Beth is given no chance to gain our sympathy by sharing her memories with us. She has only one scene to herself, when she enters the room of her dead son and is surprised out of her reverie by Conrad's sudden appearance behind her! The scene explicitly invokes the conventions of the "stalker" movie, with Beth as victim and Conrad as monster!

Beth is alone,and images of her isolation are intercut with shots of Conrad entering the house and climbing the stairs. The scene of Beth's reverie is silent, presented as a series of cuts between close shots of her blank, haunted expression and panning shots from nearly her viewpoint of the trophies and photographs on the wall!

The camera work outshines the dialogue by a mile. Terrific exposition of female oppresion. A must see for anyone interested in post-modern feminist issues, even after 20years.

An extremely moving family drama
Review date: 2004-01-26 Rating: 10 out of 10

This movie profoundly affected me when I first saw it 6 years ago,when I was 10, and watching it today its impact remains undiminished.

In the wrong hands, this could so easily have become yet another dreary family drama in the TV Movie of the Week tradition, but first-time director Robert Redford skillfully avoids all the cliches. His restrained direction ensures that the movie never descends into melodrama, and the big moments are superbly realised without the use of soaring strings or other Hollywood devices. Consequently, there is not a single moment that does not entirely ring true, and the movie is all the more heartwrenching for Redford's honest approach.

He is helped by a uniformly excellent cast. From all accounts, Redford is (as you might expect) an actor's director, and here he draws superb performances from two actors in atypical roles. Donald Sutherland is deeply moving in the difficult role of the father unable to comprehend why his family is falling apart, and Mary Tyler Moore is equally good as his emotionally repressed wife. The latter's performance is all the braver when one recalls that Tyler Moore's role mirrored her own off-screen turmoil at that time. For like the character of Beth in the movie, she too had recently lost a son, and was struggling to come to terms with her loss.

Judd Hirsch and Elizabeth McGovern are also impressive as, respectively, the psychiatrist and choirfriend who try to help Conrad, the troubled younger son of Tyler Moore and Sutherland. Conrad is played by 20-year-old Timothy Hutton in a mesmerising performance that will leave few viewers unaffected. Perfectly capturing the suicidal anguish of his character, Hutton rightly won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in this pivotal role. (Though why he was not nominated for Best Actor is beyond me; his is, after all, the central performance in the movie). Given the degree of Hutton's talent, one can only look in dismay at the downward spiral of his career in recent years.

Ordinary People was one of the finest American movies of the 1980s, and its themes are as relevant today as they were two decades ago. I highly recommend this genuine classic.

Amazingly assured directorial debut
Review date: 2003-12-30 Rating: 10 out of 10

Robert Redford's debut as a director distinguishes itself by the economy of the directing,but also the sreenplay, with not a wasted frame or throwaway line of script between the two.
The achievement is rounded off with towering performances, not only from Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland as the surviving family members; but equally from Elizabeth McGovern as Hutton's soul mate,salvation and link with the rest of humanity, and Judd Hirsch ("Taxi") as the pragmatic,straight-talking but compassionate psychiatrist.
The regular on-the-couch interludes with Hutton and Hirsch create an effective thread to counterpoint the heavy domestic situation with Hutton and his still-grieving mother.
Likewise, Hutton's blossoming relationship with McGovern is sensitively intertwined with the rest of the plot,avoiding the obvious "love interest" angle for something more substantive.
In the end, the film is about forgiveness and accepting relationships for what they are, and not what we are told they should be.
Ordinary People,maybe, but a truly extraordinary film in terms of its insight, emotional resonance (you would need to be made of wood not to be profoundly moved by the way these people tell the story) and peerless performances by all involved on-screen and off. For what it's worth, definitely one of my Top Five of all time.

Examines relationships
Review date: 2000-12-13 Rating: 10 out of 10

Robert Redford directed this excellent film which examines the lives of a family thrown into termoil when one of the its members is tragically killed in an accident. This event affects the son who is very obviously tramatised and finds it difficult to return to a normal life. What makes the film both interesting and compeling is that it examines the inter-rationships between the family members and demonstrates in a gripping and realistic way that adversity can expose human weaknesses and frailties. It also explores the idea that relationships are only truely tested in difficult situations. I think anyone watching this film will relate to the superb performances of the actors and empathise with the emotions each of them goes through. Highly recommended and one of my all time best films.

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