In praise of Robert Redford’s Ordi­nary People

In a year of Mar­tin Scorsese’s Rag­ing Bull and David Lynch’s The Ele­phant Man, the Acad­e­my Award for Best Pic­ture and Best Direc­tor went to Robert Redford’s Ordi­nary Peo­ple, an inti­mate look into a WASP fam­i­ly slow­ly dis­in­te­grat­ing under the heavy blan­ket of loss. Forty years after its ini­tial release, there is still much to be appre­ci­at­ed in Redford’s some­what rad­i­cal por­trait of men­tal illness.

“Why do things have to hap­pen to peo­ple? It isn’t fair,” com­plains Con­rad (Tim­o­thy Hut­ton), the 18-year-old son of Calvin (Don­ald Suther­land) and Beth Jar­rett (Mary Tyler Moore) a by-the-book cou­ple who com­fort­ably live in the wealth­i­est sub­urb of Chica­go. At first glance, the prob­lems that could con­cern this young man are those of the priv­i­leged, his shel­tered world sum­marised to high school, coun­try clubs and social affairs. Con­rad, how­ev­er, is far from the shal­low waters of indul­gence. Recent­ly dis­charged from a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal, the teen now stum­bles upon the eggshells left over from his bru­tal sui­cide attempt.

Conrad’s act of des­per­a­tion was a direct response to the event that had indeli­bly tar­nished this lit­tle sub­ur­ban haven: a boat­ing acci­dent that took the life of the elder Jar­rett. Buck (Scott Doe­bler) was his mother’s most prized pos­ses­sion – the per­fect embod­i­ment of the all-Amer­i­can kid. With­out Buck, the fam­i­ly dynam­ics are unhinged. Calvin, whose pas­sive nature turns griev­ing into a keen­ness to please, is restrained by the emo­tion­al game of tug of war played between his cal­lous wife and frail son and, one by one, the tra­di­tion­al pil­lars that held the fam­i­ly togeth­er are torn to the ground.

Here, there is no space for sub­tleties. Words are rarely wast­ed as long-hid­den truths tor­ren­tial­ly pour from one Jar­rett after the oth­er. Con­rad craves the love his moth­er sim­ply can’t spare, and Beth yearns for the cur­tain of nor­mal­i­ty to be pulled down once again, har­bour­ing her from the unnec­es­sary dra­mas of motherhood.

This Freudi­an feud between Con­rad and Beth could be lengthi­ly dis­sect­ed, but Ordi­nary People’s most com­pelling trait is the rela­tion­ship between the teen and his psy­chi­a­trist, Dr Berg­er (Judd Hirsch). Step­ping away from the arche­typ­al shrink/​patient sce­nario of pro­to­coled ques­tions and dull, ster­ilised offices, Red­ford floods a trans­ac­tion usu­al­ly treat­ed with clin­i­cal cold­ness with human­i­ty. It is Berg­er who allows Conrad’s wail­ing thoughts to come to the fore after being tight­ly locked in the ten­sion-filled fam­i­ly household.

The psy­chi­a­trist sees no need for tip­toe­ing around the grim ele­phant in the room. Whilst oth­ers are either crude­ly curi­ous or rely on beat­en euphemisms to steer away from the unpleas­ant top­ic of self-killing, Berg­er gives Con­rad the gift of unbi­ased com­pli­ance. Final­ly allowed to rum­mage over his sen­ti­ments of guilt and dis­place­ment, the teen is swal­lowed by the dev­as­tat­ing anger that pre­cedes cathar­sis. The inter­ac­tions between doc­tor and patient are just as phys­i­cal as they are emo­tion­al. Con­rad jumps from his seat, stum­bles across the office and vio­lent­ly shakes his body as if try­ing to grant tan­gi­bil­i­ty to the abstract.

As they prance around one anoth­er, care­ful­ly mea­sur­ing each fig­u­ra­tive step, the crude vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of new­com­er Tim­o­thy Hut­ton fit­ly bal­ances the assured coun­te­nance of then Emmy nom­i­nat­ed Judd Hirsch. When beg­ging for numb­ness, ready to suc­cumb once again to the urges of final­i­ty, Con­rad won­ders how one could vouch for liv­ing with such cer­tain­ty. ​“Because I’m your friend,” says the psy­chi­a­trist, firm­ly step­ping over an already murky threshold.

It is the sim­plest yet most charged response Berg­er could give. With these words, the doc­tor acknowl­edges Conrad’s feel­ings of hope­less­ness and soli­tude with­out resourc­ing to any pre-estab­lished hier­ar­chies. There is an unspo­ken sense of val­i­da­tion behind the sug­ges­tion of kin­ship, a gen­tle but clear nod to the fact that ques­tion­ing life’s mer­its is inher­ent­ly human, and so is reach­ing for a help­ing hand.