Rating: 
Summary: the epitome of overcoming a crisis
Review: I have seen this movie at least 25 timesthe acting is top notch the cast is well seasoned and the soundtrack is breathtaking.this is definately a welcome addition to any home video collection.
Rating: 
Summary: healing with counseling
Review: I first saw the movie & then read Judith Guest's book. Both made a deep impression on me. The movie is passionately & beautifully made & all the acting superb.What most impressed me, however, was that it addresses a vital process -- the psychology of dysfunctional families & of getting counseling through recovery from trauma -- Judd Hirsch intensely plays the psychiatrist. Almost everyone, in the books I review, could do with a dose of counseling, although it is the rare author who takes this process seriously or considers it worth writing about, & I know from personal experience: counseling does heal, if you use it with that intention. A Rebeccasreads First Rate Recommendation, certainly a movie which will get you talking afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best films of all time
Review: Well, this film is easily one of the best I've ever seen. I saw it for the first time around 1981. It was odd, since i was watching with my own dysfunctional family when I was about 14. It's a film that moves you every time you watch it and you can take away something different each time. This is the mark of superb writing, acting and directing. I can't believe that this was Redford's first attempt at directing. It boggles the mind. Just the natural scenes of suburban Chicago alone are well-done.
Although Mary Tyler Moore, Sutherland and Hirch do fantastic jobs as Conrad's parents and psychiatrist, trying to get inside his head, it was Hutton's performance as Conrad that moved me most. He portrays the son left behind by a brother who died in a boating accident. When the movie begins, Conrad has just returned to "normal" after being in the hospital for months due to a suicide attempt. It is ironic that the title is "ordinary" people as this family is far from ordinary. But Hutton's performance, with both emotionality and such a sense of emptiness is one of the most vivid performances I've ever seen. What ever happened to Tim Hutton anyway ?
Mary Tyler Moore's performance of the cold Beth, who seems to still blame Conrad on her favorite son Buck's death, is impeccable. It really makes sense that you could get performances out of her and Tim Hutton of this caliber since both just lost a relative (she her son and Hutton his father) right before filming. Donald Sutherland really portrays the kind of father everyone wants, let's just admit it. He cares very much about his son ! To the point that he would visit his shrink to learn more about what he's going through. Excellent performance and I still don't know why he wasn't nominated.
I could write a short book about this film. Suffice it to say that everyone should see it, despite whether you view your family of origin as dysfunctional or not. We can all relate to certain themes: hiding feelings, being afraid to face pain, facing pain and not knowing what to do with it, loss of friendship, loss of love, "walking on eggshells" in your own home. Ordinary People is an extraordinary film !
Rating:
Summary: FAMILY DRAMA AT ITS BEST
Review: "Ordinary People" is a haunting story of one family's deterioration in the aftermath of tragedy. After the oldest son is killed in a boating accident on Lake Michigan his parents and younger brother are left to deal with their loss - each in their own way. The father, Calvin (Sutherland), trys to reach out to his emotionally crippled wife, Beth (Tyler-Moore), only to find a wall of denial. The remaining son, Conrad (Hutton), feels he is to blame and in his guilt has attempted suicide. Upon his return home from a psychiatric hospital, Conrad tries to resume his life in the affluent Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Some of his friends try to reach out to help him - others are coarse and insensitive - Conrad can't seem to respond to any of them - until he meets a girl from the other side of the tracks. Conrad's relationship with his psychiatrist (Hirsch) is heartwarming. Meanwhile, Calvin and Beth continue the charade which is their life until they can't pretend anymore. Each actor gave the best performances of their careers in this film - and Redford has crafted a restrained, deeply moving adaptation of Judith Guest's excellent novel while avoiding the pitfall of melodrama. This is one of my favorite movies - but it's hard to watch and will linger for days after.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: I hesitate to write a review about this movie because I do not wish to give too much plot away. This is one of my five favorite movies of all time. The acting is top-notch to the point where the characters become painfully real.
Rating:
Summary: It will move you
Review: A great movie from start to end. It tells the story of a family's struggles after the death of one of their own in a tragic accident but I really dont want to give any more of the plot away. The acting in this movie is fantastic and the its so hard to believe that this is Robert Redford's directorial debut. You really wouldn't know that from watching this. The reason that I love this film is because of the psychological aspects involved. It gives you a good insight into why people behave the way that they do. And it will surely move you. One of the best movies I've ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Quiet but enduring classic... deserved its Oscars.
Review: I remember being in a dormitory TV room when "Ordinary People" won the Oscar for Best Picture, and the guys screamed and hissed and booed and some stormed out.
And why? I knew immediately that it was because "Raging Bull" had lost.
I'm not deriding "Raging Bull" in any way-- it was a fine film, and the directing/acting was terrific... But I knew very well that depite "Bull"s admitted quality, this room of gorillas were furious and indignant not because they really appreciated the artistry of that film, but they wanted a macho film with lots of scenes of guys beating the hell out of each other to win... Some movie-goers would also vote for "Pulp Fiction" and even "Kill Bill" over, say, "Ordinary People" for Best Picture as the latter has no graphic violence.
It's that simple, and that silly.
The suggestion that this win was one of the greatest travesties in Acadamy award history is--- well, it's just a buncha raging bull.
"Bull" was good, but "Ordinary People"s haunting (there's that word again), finely textured, understated view of a disintegrating middle-class family after the death with which none of them can deal of the in-house golden-boy, is the more affecting film. Some may claim the movie is now "dated" in that so many pictures have followed focusing on or dissecting middle class suburban life, but I've generally found those to be either too 80's-style-self-conscious, and/or too smug, and just quirkily unconnected to reality (and please dont confuse "Terms of Endearment" nor "American Beauty" with "Ordinary People"!)
"People" succeeds through understatement and lack-of-pretense, and from the fact that it was filmed in a now-bygone era in which posturing and political correctness weren't required from the script or the participants.
The Academy got it right.
Rating:
Summary: Still a great movie, after all these years...
Review: I have just watched this movie on DVD, after not seeing it in its entirety in years. Still an excellent film with superb performances. Timothy Hutton received a much-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal. Mary Tyler Moore's character as his all-too-human mother is touching and heartbreaking at the same time; you see her as flawed, but imminently human, instead of the characiture her character could have easily become. If you care for gripping dramas that are ultimately about personal redemption, buy this film.
Rating:
Summary: excellent movie
Review: Faithful adaptation of Judith Guest's novel of an upper middle class family coming apart after the death of there eldest son and the attempted suicide of the younger son. Strong performances by all four leads and masterful direction from Robert Redford make Alvin Sargents powerful, intelligent script seem even better.
Rating:
Summary: A look at life.
Review: "Ordinary People" (1980) is one of those rare classic films that has lost none of its power and remains relevant and fresh nearly 25 years after its original release. Robert Redford's film debut, based on the modern classic novel by Judith Guest, packs the same powerful emotional punch on the tenth viewing it does on its first.
The story is simple but deals with incredibly complex emotions that take its characters and the audience into some pretty dark places. On first look, the Jarretts are an ordinary, upper-middle class family consisting of businessman father Calvin (Donald Sutherland), homemaker wife Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and teenage son Conrad (Timothy Hutton). But something is definitely wrong. Conrad has trouble sleeping and has slash mark scars on his wrists. Calvin seems overly concerned with his son's health, while Beth is obviously in serious denial about something. Then there's the bedroom at the end of the hall that is filled with another, absent son's possessions--an older son named Buck, whom we gradually discover has recently died in a tragic accident in which Conrad had some part. It's not until Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist named Berger (Judd Hirsch) that the circumstances of the accident, and the fragile state of the Jarrett family's emotional health, starts to unravel.
"Ordinary People" is a perfect movie. Not one scene, line of dialog, characterization or camera shot is out of place, wasted or unnecessary. Redford directs with the sure hand of an old pro, and screenwriter Alvin Sargent (who recently wrote the superior script to "Spiderman 2") has accomplished something unthinkable: he's actually written a script that improves on the original novel, which is pitch-perfect in its own right. And the performances are phenomenal: Hutton won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his brilliant turn as a suicidal teen simply crying out for his mother's love, while Moore deserved one (but lost out to Sissy Spacek's equally deserving work in "Coal Miner's Daughter") as a mother who buried her heart with her favorite son and cannot bring herself to give her surviving son the love he needs. And Hirsch is a tower of strength as the understanding psychiatrist who forces Conrad to unlock the keys to his memory and understand why he has lost the will to live. But the truly unsung hero is Sutherland, in an atypical role as a loving father who is supremely concerned about his son but simply can't crack through the surface of either wife or son to get to the root of the problem. M. Emmett Walsh (as a swimming instructor), Frederic Lehne (as a concerned friend) and Elizabeth McGovern (as Conrad's potential girlfriend) add key support, while Dinah Manoff is simply a knockout in her one scene as Conrad's obviously unstable mental patient friend.
But the real genius of the film is in the casting of Mary Tyler Moore as the coldest, and most hated, mother since Angela Lansbury in "The Manchurian Candidate." That Redford saw this character in the actress who previously was best known as the bubbly heroine of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" has to rank as one of the riskiest, and ultimately most insightful, casting decisions in cinema history. Mark my word, in a film filled with haunting imagery, you will never forget Moore's last scene, in which she pathetically struggles to maintain her composure when she realizes her whole world has come crashing down on her.
"Ordinary People" won the 1980 Best Picture Oscar, as well as awards for Hutton, Redford's direction and Sargeant's script. Critics have maligned the choice for over two decades because it beat out Martin Scorsese's masterwork "Raging Bull," which is admittedly an outstanding film. Maybe this really is one of the all-time Oscar tragedies like many say. But one thing is for sure. "Ordinary People" is the rare film that has the power to not only change lives, but save them, too, if people take its message to heart. "Raging Bull" is simply a vivid biopic of a heinous man. I'll take the former any day.
***** (out of *****), although the DVD is a typical bare-bones, extras-free (except for the original trailer and 1:85:1 widescreen format) Paramount package. Next year is the 25th anniversary, so here's hoping Paramount DVD opens the pursestrings and presents the extras and cast commentary this classic film deserves.
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