Rent Ordinary People (1980)

“He loves you, but he’s wrong.” - Ordinary People review by LJ

An intense drama dealing with mental health issues around grief, guilt, suicide, repression, denial and peppered with extremely cathartic emotional outbursts, I was concerned this might be boring and boy was I wrong.

The Nicest Punch in the Gut - Ordinary People review by griggs

I was genuinely curious how this could knock Raging Bull out of Oscar contention. Now I get it. It isn’t just the craft (rock-solid); it’s the kind of hurt it refuses to rush. Everything happens inside affluent WASP manners — a world where feelings don’t get expressed, they get handled, tidied up, and smiled through.

Redford lets scenes run long until avoidance starts to creak. At the dinner table, you can hear people reach for the “right” sentence, fail, and grab a joke instead. That’s the film’s cruelty: care turns into management, and “help” becomes a demand that everyone look normal.

Donald Sutherland is devastating as a dad trying to steer by instinct. Timothy Hutton holds the centre without showboating, Judd Hirsch brings brisk, humane honesty, and Mary Tyler Moore wears composure like armour — not evil, just cold. It doesn’t leave you shocked; it leaves you quietly winded.

Teenage Angst - Ordinary People review by Steve

The outrage caused by this beating Raging Bull to Best Film at the 1981 Oscars always seemed phoney; this is a worthy winner, just... very different. It's a domestic drama set in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago where a respectable family suffers the aftershocks of a fatal accident while they get stuck in the stages of grief.

The favoured son dies in a boating accident while his introverted younger brother is rescued. There are intense ensemble performances with Donald Sutherland as the well-meaning dad who just wants to believe everything is ok and Mary Tyler Moore as the brittle trad-wife/mother who can't feel any love for the survivor...

The standout is Timothy Hutton; this comes alive when he is on screen as the schoolkid who can't live with the guilt and may be heading for another suicide attempt. His scenes with Judd Hirsch as a cranky psychotherapist cut deepest. Hutton won the Oscar for Supporting Actor on his feature debut, but he plays the central role.

Robert Redford also won an Oscar for a debut- as director. His use of music is excellent and the autumnal background brings some atmosphere, but he occasionally loses control of the emotional throttle. This is better as a rites-of-passage about teenage anxiety than a study of midlife bourgeois disappointment, but works either way.