Delayed Reaction: Ordinary People

The Pitch: My name is Robert Redford. You don't know it yet, but you're about to love me for more than being an actor.

It's not an active goal. It's more of an assumed inevitability that I'll end up seeing all the Oscar winners for best picture. This is one of those that I never really knew what it was about. It looked Oscar-baity and I knew that it is why ads for TNT's Leverage always began with "Oscar Winner" before saying Timothy Hutton.

This was OK. It felt pretty familiar. This is were I'm legally obligated to make a comment about historical context and that there's been 35 years for imitators to refine and enrich the formula. Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch in more dramatic roles were refreshing. It's also nice to see Donald Sutherland not as a villain. Timothy Hutton impressed me*. The story went in directions I didn't always expect, most notably the mother leaving the house. I was fully expecting her to come around. That she didn't is much more interesting.

*I love how he's clearly the lead of the movie but got an Oscar for supporting role. Mary Tyler Moore was nominated as a lead when you could argue that she was a supporting character. It's good to be reminded that Oscar jockeying is nothing new.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend