Ordinary People
Authors: Elaine Lockhart
Journal: BMJ (2007)

Robert Redford's directorial debut introduces us to a family that has lost a son, Buck, leaving both parents and the younger brother, Conrad, cast adrift. The film, unusually for a Hollywood production, focuses on a young person with psychiatric problems and also on the positive input of a psychiatrist. The underlying premise seems to be that a tragedy unleashes the demons lying within a typical affluent middle class family, as evoked in later films by directors David Lynch and Sam Mendes. 

Most of the story, based on the book by Judith Guest, is told from the perspective of Conrad, played by Timothy Hutton, who had always languished in the background while Buck had been the golden boy. The film invites us to watch a teenager struggle in the midst of his family falling apart. The emotional distress is portrayed amid the beautifully photographed Illinois scenery, with emphasis on the external appearance of middle class comfort and solidity, a mark of his parents' success. 

Conrad's parents, skilfully acted by Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland, are so caught up in their own grief that they are unable to connect with and help Conrad. In particular, his mother appears to blame Conrad for Buck's death, which resulted from a boating accident. Her glacial presentation leaves us in no doubt that, for her, the wrong son died. The father on the other hand is struggling not only with Buck's death but also with a disintegrating marriage, which leaves little energy to deal with his surviving son. 

Conrad has distressing flashbacks and nightmares and feels guilty that he survived instead of Buck. At the start of the film, he has returned from a psychiatric unit having cut his wrists, but is still not coping and is referred to a new psychiatrist, Dr Tyrone C Berger (played by Judd Hirsch). He attends reluctantly but slowly begins to trust this stranger. Dr Berger has an abrasive style but a clear commitment to troubled young people. 

This was my first contact with an adolescent psychiatrist, albeit fictional, and I was impressed by how he engaged with this struggling teenager, appearing to understand the conflicting powerful emotions Conrad was feeling, and, unlike his family, refusing to deny his distress or patronise him. In the midst of suffering Conrad meets and become friendly with another young person in trouble, but a fragile sense of hope that things will get better is rocked when he learns that she has taken an overdose and died. 

The climax of the film occurs when Conrad, in crisis, phones Dr Berger and his whole sense of guilt and blame for Buck's death pours out. Unlike Conrad's family, Dr Berger is able to tolerate this catharsis, respond to him, and absolve him of blame. This begins to relieve Conrad of his terrible burden. Although his mother is as distant as ever, his father is finally able to respond to, and love, the son who has been left. 

The part of Dr Berger is idealised, but his ability to face Conrad's distress and help render it into something that can be managed is moving and compelling. Dr Berger is just the psychiatrist for a troubled young man: intelligent, full of compassion, and humanity, but also challenging and prepared to use humour.