Ordinary People (DVD)

What a marvellousmovie! Winning the Oscar for the year's Best Picture, it won three other Academy awards, as well as many other international cinematic honours. Starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch. Robert Redford won his first Oscar here - while sitting in the director's chair for the very first time!

Likeable Canadian actor Donald Sutherland's flawless acting flexibility needs no explaining, though Mary Tyler Moore plays a type of role here that is completely removed from her previous work, mainly on TV: namely that of a wife and mother who has emotionally isolated herself from her immediate family. It is an unlikeable part... but she is very good indeed. Psychaitrist Dr Tyrone C Burger is played by Judd Hirsch - of whom we see far too little on the screen. Indeed, it wasn't until the more recent blockbuster Independence Day that he was given another role worthy of his talents.

I have just three words to sum up my enthusiasm about this picture; viz. "JUST SEE IT!"

Robert Redford made his Oscar-winning directorial debut with this highly acclaimed, poignantly observant drama (based on the novel by Judith Guest) about a well-to-do family's painful adjustment to tragedy. Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland play a seemingly happy couple who lose the older of their two sons to a boating accident; Timothy Hutton plays the surviving teenage son, who blames himself for his brother's death and has attempted suicide to end his pain. They live in a meticulously kept home in an affluent Chicago suburb, never allowing themselves to speak openly of the grief that threatens to tear them apart. Only when the son begins to see a psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch) does the veneer of denial begin to crack, and Ordinary People thenceforth directly examines the broken family ties and the complexity of repressed emotions that have festered under the pretense of coping. Superior performances and an Oscar-winning script by Alvin Sargent make this one of the most uncompromising dramas ever made about the psychology of dysfunctional families. There are moments--particularly related to Mary Tyler Moore's anguished performance as a woman incapable of expressing her deepest emotions--when this film is both intensely involving and heartbreakingly real. No matter how happy and healthy your upbringing was, there's something in this excellent film that everyone can relate to. --Jeff Shannon

General

Studio:	Paramount
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	March 2008
Directors:	Robert Redford
Actors:	Donald Sutherland • Mary Tyler Moore • Timothy Hutton
Dimensions:	192 x 137 x 15mm (L x W x T)
Format:
Running time:	1 hour, 59 minutes
Region encoding:	Region 2. This DVD will play in all South African DVD players.
Audio format:	Dolby Digital Mono
Video format:	Widescreen 1.85:1
Age restriction:	15
Categories:	DVD > Drama DVD > Feature Film
LSN:	XRD-R16-0KE-6
Barcode:	5014437820730

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