In 1980, Robert Redford made his directorial debut—and won the Academy Award—with Ordinary People, proving that his talents behind the camera equaled or excelled those in front. Already a star from movies like The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men, Redford was considered an able actor, but with this film, which landed four Oscars in total, his stock rose as an all-around talent.
Conrad Jarrett (Timothy Hutton) is an 18-year-old who has recently returned home from a stay in a psychiatric hospital, following a suicide attempt which, in turn, followed the accidental death of his older brother, Buck (Scott Doebler). While Conrad attempts to re-connect with his friends on the swimming team—despite having been held back a year—and tries to put his life back together, his family falls apart.

The Jarretts aren't exactly "ordinary" people; they live a privileged life in the upper-middle class Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Calvin (Donald Sutherland), is a warm-hearted, compassionate man, damaged by Buck's death but able to discuss his feelings. His wife, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) is his polar opposite, a cold and hostile woman who has never much loved—or even liked—Conrad, though she cherished Buck in an almost oedipal way.

In his struggle with grief and attempts to connect with his mother, Conrad seeks the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). While Calvin can understand how therapy may help Conrad, Beth is embarrassed by the need for outside intervention. In her world, as is often the case in the upper-middle class WASP culture, families handle their problems alone; admitting one needs help is an unforgivable weakness.

The way in which Conrad witnessed his brother's death is revealed over the course of the movie, in fragments and fast flashbacks juxtaposed against the primary story's slow pacing.

Intense grief can change a person, making them gentler and more vulnerable. Conrad, at 18, and with virtually no peers with the same problems, is separate and almost alien from others; the world is swirling around him. Together, Hutton and Redford bring to life Conrad's awkwardness at re-establishing contact with a world that went on without him for a year, a world that has no idea what he's been through. His once-beloved swim team seems insignificant, and his only respites from feeling like an outcast are his attempts at dating one of the girls from his choir (Elizabeth McGovern) and trying to get support from a neighbor who was also hospitalized (Dinah Manoff).

This is the role that made Hutton famous, and for good reason—he gives a knockout performance (for which he won the Oscar). The multiple layers of Conrad's emotions, what he dares to show, or even to feel, and what is still repressed—all come through with Hutton's delicate interpretation. Moore, who was also Oscar-nominated, is terrifyingly accurate as the personification of WASP psychological duality: kind and cheery on the surface to everyone except her family. Her downright hostility towards her youngest son is shocking and breathtaking.

Hirsch, as Conrad's only objective source of support, is also exceptional, alternating genuine compassion with some unorthodox therapy techniques to get at the issues Conrad doesn't want to face. It was a remarkable performance 25 years ago, and it remains so today, but one thing is uncanny: the resemblance between Hirsch's Berger and Robin Williams's Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. The language, tones, even their costumes are similar. Watching Ordinary People in 2004, one could easily be persuaded that Good Will Hunting co-scribes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck essentially plagiarized an entire character, or at least that Williams modeled his character on Hirsch's.

Another exceptional aspect of Ordinary People is the silence. Redford uses silence more frequently than he does Marvin Hamlisch's soft score, which makes the music even more powerful and the silence itself a motif. As one user on the Internet Movie Database remarked, "Some films you watch, others you feel," and it is Redford's ability to let the movie breathe, to not cram every second full of some sort of music, that forces the viewer to experience the film on a visceral level. John Bailey's cinematography is similarly deliberate; his gorgeously framed shots of an impossibly beautiful autumn linger. Redford allows his audience to absorb the impact of each scene before moving on to the next.

There is nothing exceptional about the DVD of Ordinary People—no digital re-mastering, no extras—but the movie itself is so extraordinary that it simply had to be released on DVD. The faded film look clearly labels the movie a period piece, and it wouldn't be the same film with a saturation-enhanced look. After all, this is a film about people whose lives have become muted and disconnected; it makes sense for the chroma to similarly be muted. Still, one hopes that Redford and company will release an anniversary edition in 2005, complete with multiple commentaries.