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Ordinary People

United States

1980

124 Min
Color
1.85:1
English
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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DIR Robert Redford

PROD Ronald L. Schwary

SCR Judith Guest, Alvin Sargent, Nancy Dowd

DP John Bailey

CAST Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, Judd Hirsch, Elizabeth McGovern, M. Emmet Walsh, Dinah Manoff

ED Jeff Kanew

MUSIC Marvin Hamlisch

Synopsis

Robert Redford’s directorial debut ended up the 1980 Oscar winner for Best Picture. It is a simple but painfully emotional story of the disintegration of a “perfect” family. Teenager Conrad (Timothy Hutton) lives under a cloud of guilt after his brother drowns after their boat capsizes in Lake Michigan. Despite intensive therapy sessions with his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch), Conrad can’t shake the belief that he should have died instead of his brother; nor do his preoccupied parents (Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore) offer much in the way of solace. The boy is brought out of his doldrums through his romance with Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern). A winner in every respect, Ordinary People (adapted from the novel by Judith Guest) scores highest in the scenes with Mary Tyler Moore, who superbly and perceptively portrays a blinkered, ever-smiling suburban wife and mother for whom outward appearance is all that matters. –MSN Movies

Director

Original

Robert Redford

Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Hart. His mother died in 1955, the year after he graduated from high school. Charles Robert Redford Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. After studying at the Pratt Institute of Art and living the painter’s life in Europe, he studied acting in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Lola Redford Van Wagenen (consumer activist), born in 1940, dropped out of college to marry Redford on September 12, 1958. They divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of whom died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, UT. Her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford AKA Jamie Redford, a screenwriter… read more

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Smooj Betty Phace

22Dec12

Holy shit. Perhaps one of the best written films ever.

Canonalan and Christopher like this

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Obient

13Dec12

I hate this film. Sorry to say.

Jason Callen likes this

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Marija Šurnaitė

26Sep12

You have to be afraid of your own feelings to hate this masterpiece of provoking emotions. I loved it. I am moved by it. This is what movies are made for. This is what art's purpose is. To feel it.

Picture of Filipe Ferraz Coutinho

Filipe Ferraz Coutinho

25Sep12

Layer upon layer, Ordinary People, evolves like a mystery, scratching the surface scene after scene. By the end, the audiences are given the most brilliant character study in cinema's history. It's a film that understands people, its vicissitudes and the brutality of human emotions. It's not about finding good guys and bad guys. It's about showing that humans are complex creatures that not always make sense.

Christopher likes this

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Great Movies

By tuyabid on August 29, 2012

This is a powerful directing debut from Robert Redford, a great family drama that goes every which way but down. By the end, our thoughts have been altered a bit and its a film that leaves you thinking…  read review

ORDINARY PEOPLE

By Daniel A. DiCenso on September 3, 2011

Ordinary People is one of the most earnest, touching, and honest films about a family in crisis. Today people may enter it with the wrong perception. Many only think of it as the film that beat Raging…  read review

Redford Directs Empathetic Drama

By Byron Brubake​r on August 11, 2011

Wow, Sutherland, Moore, Hirsch, McGovern, and Hutton all gave such touching and in touch performances. A boy struggles with feelings of guilt, which a lot of people probably feel in one way or another…  read review

deeply character-centric

By Alexis on February 8, 2010

There were so many times that i wanted to sit down and watch Ordinary People, but I never had gotten around to it. It always seemed to be one of those movies that I think would fall short of its hype…  read review

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