Robert Redford won the Best Director Oscar for helming this proficient melodrama about an upper-crust suburban family hit with tragedy: the eldest child, a golden boy, drowned in a freak boating accident, after which his younger brother (who survived the wreck) made a serious attempt at suicide after being overcome with feelings of guilt. Adaptation of Judith Guest's novel is heavy with overripe dialogue that portends to have the ring of truth. Redford seems determined not to let this scenario turn into a dirge, and so adds glimmers of humor, but occasionally he gets too colorful (as when Timothy Hutton, who wins a date with Elizabeth McGovern, smiles and sings "Hallelujah!"--that's cute, but then he continues singing it until the joke loses its freshness). As the parents, Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore are less interesting than the younger players in the cast; Moore, working a convincingly immobile persona, has some of the weakest scenes, and her society maven doesn't end up making emotional or logical sense (particularly at the finish). Judd Hirsch plays one of the those touchy-feely movie psychiatrists who always wake up in the middle of the night for a crisis, though the majority of Hutton's scenes are bracing and natural, and perky McGovern has a sweetness that isn't forced. Handsome film is well-paced, yet it has confusing and/or anticlimactic passages, and the final scenes don't work. Hutton was also awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and the film won as Best Picture. *** from ****
Review of Ordinary People
