Leaving out the horrific accident, suicide attempt and Conrad's stay in hospital Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980) knows when to start leaving much to the audiences imagination and concentrating on the families struggle to deal with these incidents.
The acting lets the audience connect with the characters, letting you understand their feelings, whether they are liked or not. Mary Tyler Moore, in a different role from her light comedies, and Donald Sutherland's (playing Conrad's parents) performances really influence the audiences feelings on their characters. You can't help but despise Moore's character and feel Sutherland's pain. Timothy Hutton (Conrad) in his Academy Award winning role, is excellent in portraying a depressed teenager. His emotions, anger, guilt, frustration are clearly shown through his acting and the audience can connect with how he feels. For example, his uneasiness of contacting Dr Berger and talking with him initially is clearly shown through his body language and expressions.
Exploring many deep themes of teenage depression, death, getting in touch with owns feelings, truth, social appearance the film is quite heavy but intriguing to watch one families struggles to overcome these issues supported by great acting.
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