Better In Your Head?--ORDINARY PEOPLE

 

Spoiler Alert: Martin Scorsese loves the movie.

THE BOOK-Written by Judith Guest, released 1976

THE MOVIE-Directed by Robert Redford, written by Alan Sargent, released 1980

THE STORY-The Jarrett family had it all. Wealth and health, love and fun. Then the oldest son died, leaving behind countless devastated. None more so, perhaps, then little brother Conrad, whose ongoing struggles with depression threaten to tear the frayed tether away for good.

MIND THE GAP-For his directorial debut, Robert Redford wisely let the actors act. Besides Hutton's riveting portrayal of emotional fatigue in gradual motion, Donald Sutherland doesn't strike one fraudulent note as dad Calvin, Judd Hirsch is indispensable as the therapist-next-door, and Mary Tyler Moore played her best-ever game of pretend as a walking ice cube of a mother. Timothy Hutton's Oscar win was egregious category fraud, but his Conrad is so fucking good my complaints taste like artichoke in my mouth.

 In a world dependent on constant change, we denizens should know better than to fancy ourselves impervious. Interpreting the tragic event as a mundane event would save us so much headache. 

To air out grievances is human. Beth Jarrett, former mother of two, is easily the most (only?) loathed character, because she cannot. Cannot figure, cannot comprehend, cannot regard her surviving son as a fellow puzzle piece. She adores the horror show of respectable parties hosted by important people, where small talk is a form of currency and cries for help are served up as medium-rare jokes. Her husband and son have welcomed self-reflection into the family, but Beth is thisclose to calling the cops on the bastard.

Conrad--adjusting to life after an extended stay in a mental hospital, a fresh set of scars rushing up from both wrists--is instantly likable. He's trudging through a jungle of guilt and trauma with two sharpened pencils. He wants not simply to persist, but to please. He'll never be the superstar shine of a son his big bro was, but damnit, he can be good nevertheless, worthy. So--mom is contented in her chill; son is restless in his remorsefulness; and dad is...desperate. There's just no other word for the thing. Reconnection notice on every door of the house, and it's no small pad. 

Damn Beth! Except...I can't hate Beth. Immaculate hostess, sterling guest, spiffy dresser, emotionally stunted--she did not pop out fully-formed. Beth Jarrett was made, from a recipe many generations old. (Interestingly, both Redford and Moore saw their respective fathers in the character.) Where's the hate stem from? The pedestal upon which mothers are placed. So I pity Beth. I pity them all. 

Whether or not Ordinary People deserved Best Picture over Raging Bull, it won. Dismissing it as outdated white people stuff (see also: the Charleston and shadow puppets) is to miss the point. Rich and poor alike, given enough time, will experience the ultimate in pain. The problem with rejecting stories out of hand is the assumption the narrative is beyond the beholder's mien. Take a moment; take a chance.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD?-Nothing in the movie diverts drastically from Guest's work. Conrad's relationships outside the home aren't fleshed out, but such excisions are common (hence, adaptations so often coming up short). 

An ode to the lost soul lugging around a backpack stuffed with maps, the story of Ordinary People is the story of radical disruption on a primal level, and a reader's internal interpolation will always ring truer, and stand taller, and sleep sounder. Somehow, it's a comfort novel for me, a clarion call to self-reclamation.