Summary:
Evaluates and discusses the realistic nature of the film.
Ordinary People
The family in the movie Ordinary People suffers from an unexpected death of their oldest son Buck Jarrett in a boating accident. Which leaves the youngest son, Conrad Jarrett as only child. Soon after the accident Conrad Jarrett attempts to commit suicide by slitting his wrists, but luckily the father walks in and rushes him to the hospital where he gets saved but remains there for about a month. Once released, Conrad sees a psychologist who helps him solve his many problems, for instance his mother, Beth (played by Mary Tyler Moore) doesn't love him and he has a lot of trouble sleeping. Eventually Conrad's problems and his mother's lack of love lead to his mother leaving him and his dad.
The problems Conrad has with his mother are the root of his conflict because he doesn't feel loved at all by his mother (because she doesn't really love him). After the death of her eldest son Beth doesn't no show Conrad the affection he needs which leads him to believe that she hates him so he continuously gets into fights with his mother no matter how hard he seems to try and fix their relationship. So of course Conrad becomes more depressed but his work with his psychologist helps him greatly so he can overcome the problem with his mother.
Eventually the father begins to realize the fact that Beth really does not love Conrad so both he and Conrad try to talk about and solve the problems the family is having but Beth denies that there are any problems in the first place. So the father and the son start to drift father and farther away from the mother emotionally which leads to the destruction of their family.
Beth is a typical housewife in this story who has problems expressing her emotions, which stops her from confronting her problems. While she seems to be a typical housewife she is in fact a very different mother because she doesn't love her child. Beth seems to care more about herself and what she wants then what her children need so in the end when she is forced to either compromise her happiness in order to save her family and her child or leave them to solve their own problems she chooses herself and her happiness.
This was not a very typical movie of this time or any time because it doesn't resolve in a happy ending as I thought it would. It also isn't very typical because it talks about problems that many families face but none really want to speak of. In addition the father seems very unconventional because he seems to be the main parental figure giving love to the son when usually it is the opposite.
The conflict of the movie gets resolved by the mother leaving so that the son and father can both have healthy relationships without their mother interfering and causing them heart ache. Throughout the movie I hated the mother character because she seemed as though she had no feeling whatsoever for anyone accept herself. I cant imagine what it would be like to have a parent who treated my family that way and if I was the son or the father id be glad to get rid of her at the end. Once I realized that this movie was not going to have a happy ending I not only enjoyed it more because it was more realistic but found it was healthier for the family not to get back together
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