Synopsis
Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.
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Cast
- Donald SutherlandCalvin Jarrett
- Mary Tyler MooreBeth Jarrett
- Judd HirschDr. Berger
- Timothy HuttonConrad Jarrett
- M. Emmet WalshSwim Coach
- Elizabeth McGovernJeannine Pratt
- Dinah ManoffKaren
- Fredric LehneLazenby
- James B. SikkingRay Hanley
- Basil HoffmanSloan
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Each character in this movie is given the dramatic opportunity to look inside himself, to question his own motives as well as the motives of others, and to try to improve his own ways of dealing with a troubled situation. Two of the characters do learn how to adjust; the third doesn't. It's not often we get characters who face those kinds of challenges on the screen, nor directors who seek them out. Ordinary People is an intelligent, perceptive, and deeply moving film. - 100
The New York Times
A moving, intelligent and funny film about disasters that are commonplace to everyone except the people who experience them. Not since Robert Benton's "Kramer vs. Kramer" has there been a movie that so effectively catches the look, sound and temper of a particular kind of American existence. - 100
Time
An austere and delicate examination of the ways in which a likable family falters under pressure and struggles, with ambiguous results, to renew itself. This is not very show-bizzy stuff, but for once, a movie star has used his power to create not light entertainment or a trendy political statement, but a work that addresses itself quietly and intelligently to issues everyone who attempts to raise children must face. - 100
Variety
A powerfully intimate domestic drama, Ordinary People represents the height of craftsmanship across the board. - 90
Newsweek
If the film has a problem, it's a kind of excess of goodness at the expense of imaginative excitement. The real hero is the psychiatrist, played with a riffing Jewish beat by Hirsch as a counterpoint to the tight Wasp rhythms of Conrad's family. There's a feeling of therapy more than revelation, but perhaps for our multifariously sick society therapy has become revelation. This seems to have been a major point in Guest's novel, and Redford has dramatized it with integrity, honor and compassion. [22 Sept 1980, p.76] - 88
Boston Globe
Moore's conception of the character is compelling. She rivets us. She's assisted by the superb performances Redford has elicited from her co- stars, Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who plays Conrad, the guilt-ridden surviving brother of the dead boy. [26 Sep 1980] - 80
Washington Post
The story of a boy's re-entry into family and school life after a mental breakdown, it is of strikingly high quality. Redford apparently has a fine eye, and the ability to draw the very best from veteran actors Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland, as well as from a youngster, Timothy Hutton. The entire cast, to the smallest parts, are excellent. And the dialogue, costumes and settings are so perfectly appropriate that they approach satire. [26 Sept 1980, p.17] - 80
Empire
This is thoughtful and beautifully observed work, from the social backdrop and the tell-me-what-you're-feeling analysis sessions to the painful performances including Mary Tyler Moore playing against type as the chillingly repressed mother.
