Ordinary People Review
By David Kempler
Ordinary people are far more interesting than this
Incredibly repressed and boring people
"Ordinary People" is a fairly well done soap opera, a sort of "General Hospital" for the big screen. Nothing more. Nothing less. Director Robert Redford, in his directing debut, strings together an endless montage of close-ups of an incredibly overwrought family wracked by dark secrets. Hardly a scene passes without the audience being able to count the pores on the faces of the stars, Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton, and Judd Hirsch. These are all fine actors, except for perhaps Mary, but in this film they are all condemned to staring off into space, despair etched on their miserable faces. Maybe Susan Lucci should have replaced Ms. Moore. The film would not have missed a beat. "Ordinary People" is well intentioned, but in the end it merely comes off as an Ingmar Bergman Lite film.
The story centers on a family being torn apart by tension and tragedy. Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore are an upper-middle-class couple whose "ordinary" existence is stolen from them when their oldest son dies in a boating accident. Timothy Hutton, the surviving younger son, struggles with thoughts of suicide due to the guilt he feels over his brother's death. Judd Hirsch plays the sympathetic psychiatrist who provides his expertise in the hopes of saving the struggling young lad. Mary Tyler Moore plays the aloof matriarch of the family, while the usually talented Donald Sutherland gives an incredibly stilted performance.
In the eyes of Hollywood feigned solemnity and iron hand pounding into our heads of suffering passes for art. Never mind that "Ordinary People" is for the most part a bore fest. It is serious and attempts to examine a very serious topic. Some audience goers enjoy films that take on the nitty-gritty. I like that too. The problem here is that it doesn't really work all that well.
Do yourself a favor and skip "Ordinary People". It may cause the opening of your tear ducts because of its openly manipulative attempt to make you care about a family that would be better served by a mass suicide. That ending would have worked much better and made me stand up and cheer. If it is too late, and you have already seen it, my condolences. It's too bad that "Ordinary People" isn't about an ordinary family. That would have been interesting. Instead we are left with an ordinary movie, and I'm being generous with that appraisal.
