'Ordinary People' and The Unspoken Feelings We Take For Granted in Our Family
Robert Redford’s 1980 directorial debut forces us to re-evaluate and articulate love even when it's uncomfortable, even when it hurts
About five years ago, I went to a private gastroenterologist after months of suffering from constant, discomforting stomach pains. Following a thorough examination and bloodwork, the results were inconclusive, rather speculative, and the pills I got prescribed were a different version of a medication that I’ve taken before with no solution. Ultimately, the doctor said that there was nothing really wrong with me. “But I’m still in pain,” I said. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she responded on the phone after discussing all of my test results, “you’re having bad symptoms from a generally harmless disease that 9 out of 10 people never experience.” She was the third professional who couldn’t offer any help in treating what I had.
When I explained this to my dad on the phone, he became angry. “I should’ve been there to tell her that isn’t good enough.” As we talked more, both of us vexed and disappointed, about what could be done next, he was suddenly overcome with emotion. Something I rarely witnessed in 30 years. His deep and masculine voice started trembling. It was the first time in my life that I heard him verbally express worry about my physical well-being. There was a long pause on his end of the line. He couldn't talk because he was crying. Then he said quietly, "I don't know what I would do if you got worse."
It took every cell in my body not to choke up and break down balling. I had to console my father about my agony and reassure him that I wouldn't give up until I found a remedy — or someone who could actually diagnose and treat what I had, even though I sought help in two separate countries at that point. It was one of those rare occasions when my dad managed to articulate his love for me.
The reason I’m telling you this is because watching Robert Redford’s 1980 Oscar-winning feature Ordinary People — a blind spot of mine that I haven’t seen until now and likely couldn’t have appreciated as much seeing it younger — kept reminding me of that conversation. Of what pure parental love means on the giving and receiving end. I found it astonishing how a straightforward movie from nearly 45 years ago sustained its emotional resonance and remained potent and relatable through several generations.
Redford's film has a universal way to suck you into its melancholy, autumnal drama even if you have virtually nothing in common with its protagonists, the Jarretts, a well-to-do suburban American family. That’s partly due to Donald Sutherland’s tremendously moving performance as Calvin Jarrett, a good husband and caring dad of his son Conrad (played by a sensitive Timothy Hutton), who attempted suicide after losing his brother in a boat accident. The aftermath of the tragedy they’re going through immediately hits home because its portrayal is earnest, empathetic, and, most of all, devastating to every human being.
They all react to death very differently. Conrad blames himself, believing he could’ve prevented it somehow. Calvin's grief turns him into an extra tender and overprotective parent of the only child he has left. The mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore superbly tackling the most ungrateful role of the film), pretends she’s already dealt with it and carries on by building the image of a perfect, happy family. To some extent, they’re all lying to themselves to avoid facing the reality of how this tragedy inevitably changes them as a family unit.
As the movie starts, none of them knows how to articulate or even acknowledge their harboring emotions. Conrad is the only one willing to change that by seeing a therapist (Judd Hirsch). He doesn’t want to be there and hates every excruciating moment talking about what happened and how he feels about it. Yet he keeps going because he knows his dad wants him to and because the constant nightmares and haunting trauma he has to deal with every day are overwhelming and unbearable. The shift he desperately longs for comes slowly — through understanding and learning, figuring out how to communicate the feelings of guilt that weigh him down — and inadvertently affects his parents, too. By seeing what he’s going through, Calvin and Beth reluctantly realize their family can no longer function the way it used to. Not without identifying and treating the problems in their own complicated relationship. The question is whether their marriage can survive the truth if they expose their feelings about each other.
My parents and I have never been an “I love you” family. What I mean by this is that we don’t feel the urge to say those words out loud every time we hang up the phone or part ways, let alone in the middle of a mundane conversation. I can't even think of a standard scenario that justified blurting that phrase out. By default, we collectively believe that our actions and behavior around each other should express the love we feel. For some reason, we’ve always found it pretentious and inconvenient to verbally articulate affirmations (our native tongue is Hungarian, which may have something to do with it).
I can't pinpoint when it began, but lately, my father started saying "I love you" on the phone every time we said goodbye. At first, I didn't respond to it. It felt weird and uncomfortable because I'd never done it before — at least not to my family. I had no idea how to react to it. I don’t know if he started it because he’s getting older or something in particular happened to him, but he still does it today.
So, after a while, I gave it a shot. I repeated it back to him, even if it was strange. I thought, "How could it be wrong to reciprocate my love for my own father by articulating it, especially if he initiated it?” Then I wondered what a cold and weirdo nation we are that we can’t even feel comfortable giving the simplest form of affirmation to the people we love the most. It’s the foundation of every healthy relationship: The very base of developing a connection and trust to later be able to confide in a person about the heaviest and most difficult things we can feel as human beings. I love you, too, dad. How can something so simple and easy be so hard? It's not. Say it. See? A few words that can mean a world as much to you as to the person you’re saying it to.
The Jarretts (especially Beth) think their love for each other is implied. Always present. There’s no need to express it verbally because it’s constantly there, hidden in all the everyday conversations, and assumed at any given moment. But it’s dangerous to assume a feeling that hasn’t been exquisitely communicated in a long time, if ever. Love can fade and weaken and turn into something else over time, particularly if not nurtured repeatedly. You need reassurance: a hug, a smile, a kiss on the cheek. But even so, none of those is as clear as a warm and heartfelt confession in your own words.
There's a scene in the film's second act where Calvin visits Conrad's psychiatrist, even though he doesn't believe in therapy. He's nervous and can’t seem to find an explanation for being there. Words let him down. But there’s a reason, he just doesn’t know what it is yet. He respects the doctor-patient confidentiality and doesn’t pry by asking the man how his son is doing. It takes him a few minutes, but Calvin slowly realizes he’s there to talk about himself. To figure out his own complex emotions and, almost accidentally, he starts talking about his marriage and his wife’s inability to show tenderness for their son. Conrad knows this already, but it's the first time Calvin actually admits the sad truth to himself. After that, he opens up like he’s never done before and finds a harrowing but crucial revelation: his wife is emotionally closed off in a way that might be unchangeable.
We see this over and over again: Beth is afraid to talk about her feelings — whether they are about his beloved dead son or Conrad, who she never loved as much — because she's terrified of what she might find. Or the complete lack of profound emotions. By the end of Ordinary People, Calvin learns that his wife is no longer the woman and mother he’s been loving for 21 years. Their son’s death changed everything, and Beth can’t adjust to a new reality in which her family is broken and incomplete. She can’t give anymore because all of her love has been buried along with her child.
In the penultimate scene, Calvin finally confronts Beth and asks if she really loves him. She replies, “I feel the way I’ve always felt about you.” He knows there and then that their marriage is probably over. Even in such a vulnerable and desperate moment, watching her husband crying alone in the dark, Beth is unable to say the words Calvin needs to hear. She doesn't have it in her, and it's heartbreaking because Sutherland gives everything he has in his repertoire to the scene, and you feel every ounce of his character's pain — it fills his teary, sorrowful eyes.
The following morning, Conrad finds his dad in the backyard, staring into nothing. He knows something's wrong, and when he asks him, he gets visibly upset. Calvin tells him the truth about his mom leaving, and the two connect in an intimate way they never have before. Father and son finally find the words that matter most, charged with truth and honesty, and they aren't afraid to say them. From his child, Calvin gets what his wife couldn't give him just a few hours ago: a genuine expression of love.
Over four decades in, Ordinary People is still compelling and remarkable because it conveys a delicate emotional intelligence that rings true regardless of race, class, ethnicity, or gender. It speaks a language that everyone knows but only a few use regularly. And by doing so, it reminds us how important it is to stay fluent in articulating what we feel about the people we care about the most. That speaking up is always worth it, even if it hurts like hell the first time.
Last week, I reviewed Max’s The Penguin, a full-blown gangster drama in the DC universe, for Looper. I also wrote about the latest entry in the American Story franchise, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, for Paste. The former has already turned into unmissable appointment TV, while the latter is kind of destined to be discovered over time.
As always, thanks for reading and supporting The Screen.
Akos, I am so impressed by your writing. Blending such a vulnerable moment in your life with a film review creates a piece of writing that is more than the sum of its parts. It elevates it to something that resonates in lovely and poignant way. Thank you for sharing it with us. As an aside. How do you say “I love you” in Hungarian?
A beautiful essay about one of my favorite films. I saw this in the 80's when I was a teenager. It had a profound impact on me. Around that time, my mother had a mental breakdown. It was very shocking to me. I think I was very immature. A part of me blamed my mother for the pain that my love for her caused me. I realized I was vulnerable. I didn't know what to do with those feelings that I know I was not supposed to feel.
My mother was a teacher. After the initial episode, my mother was diagnosed with depression. She stayed at home for a month. But after just a week, she was doing the house chores, preparing dinner, by herself. My father would come home after work to his usual routine. Sit on the sofa, watch tv, waiting for dinner. And I realized, for the first time, that underneath our perfect family, there was dysfunction. It made me value my mother in a way I had never realized. It made me become more helpful and attentive. To value my mother more. She is a wonderful 80 year old lady now, and I love her immensely.
Anyway, going back to Ordinary People, what I love about it is the way it portrays that subterranean dysfunction that can exist in a seemingly perfect family. At the core of it is Beth, wonderfully portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore. The thing about Beth is that she is unable to mourn the death of her favorite son. And, as Calvin states at some point, if you can't feel pain, you can't feel anything else.
There is a brilliant scene in the end, when Beth goes up to the room to make her luggage, to leave. And, for a brief moment, she is overcome with emotion. Something she is unable to process. For a second, there is hope. But she does what she has been doing all along. She freezes, and suppresses all the feelings she has inside.
It is horrifying to watch, but I believe this is a hopeful scene. To me, the film is open ended. Maybe her marriage with Calvin can be saved. But she must go through that process. She needs to confront those powerful feelings, and she is unable to do it alone. But the fact that those feelings are there is a light in the apparent darkness she has surrounded herself with.
Ordinary People may seem like a conventional film, it its appearance, but it is a brilliant portrait of love, life and human relations. Thank you for reminding me.