Every family will suffer a heartache at some point. When is comes to the Jarretts theirs is almost too hard to handle. They are the ideal upper-middle class family looks like. Great house, happy marriage, they live comfortably with two sons. That is until one day when the kids go out on the boat and it starts to storm. Their oldest son doesn't make it home. Their family situation is now trying to reach a new normal, but with Beth, the mother, still trying to act like nothing has changed at all it sends their younger son into a crisis. Conrad just got back from the hospital from a suicide attempt. His father now feels like he is walking on eggshells around Conrad where his mother acts like he never was in the hospital. Conrad starts working with Dr. Berger, a therapist, to deal with his emotions about his brother's death and how his mother is treating him. When Conrad's father starts to see Dr. Berger as well they start to see that things have to change and they need to start to deal with the new normal.
Paramount really did well with Ordinary People. It was nominated for six Academy Awards and won four of them. It was also one of the first times in film that psychiatric practice was shown in a positive light and the film received many praises for it! Ordinary People took home the Best Picture Award over: Universal's Coal Miner's Daughter; Paramount's own The Elephant Man; United Artists Raging Bull; and Renn Productions Tess.
This film takes a look at life after loss in a different way. Most films that deal with lost have a happy ending and this long process of getting to the issue. While some issues do still take a while to get to in this film, and some are never resolved in the short timeline, the big issue of getting help is taken care of rather quickly in the film. We start to see a development in the character early on rather than about half way through the film. We really see how every handle loss differently and how you handle loss can effect others. It does an amazing job at tackling big issue that movies haven't really done before like child loss and suicide. I think this is a movie that is underrated and need to be seen an appreciated more often.
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