Ordinary People (1980)

One of my absolute favorite movies probably because I could identify so much with the character Timothy Hutton (Best Supporting Actor) played. No, my older brother didn't drown or die prematurely. However, he was the BMOC (big man on campus) type and everyone loved him. And no, my mother wasn't an unfeeling bitch like Mary Tyler Moore's "mom" nor my father a weak-kneed pushover like Donald Sutherland's character, but I've seen both types in spades. Robert Redford's directorial debut earned him the Oscar. The film won the Best Picture and Screenplay Writing Oscars as well. Ms. Moore and Judd Hirsch, both multi-Emmy winners, received their only Oscar nominations (to date).

The story is about a teenager (Hutton) who's big brother dies in a boating accident causing a monumental change in the surviving family members relationships, compounded by the fact that "Hutton" has attempted suicide. The ensuing drama reveals the characters of the mother (Moore) & father (Sutherland) as they withdraw into themselves or struggle to hold things together, respectively. Hirsch plays the psychiatrist Hutton's character starts seeing. M. Emmet Walsh plays his (and formerly his brother's) swim coach. Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime (1981)) plays a teenage girl Hutton's character is interested in. Dinah Manoff (who couldn't look anymore like her mother did in Detective Story (1951)) plays another teen recovering from her own suicide attempt that got to know Hutton's character when they were both in the "hospital".

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