It was winter time, I can remember. Late on a Saturday afternoon, sometime in 1980/81 as we travelled by taxi as the light faded.
I can remember the closer we got, the tighter and more anxious I got, and the more relaxed Dad became. After days of black moods and tears and heated discussions the decision had been made... he wanted to check in to the hospital, was spiraling out of control and needed to admit himself and be voluntarily committed.
This wasn't the first time this had happened, though it was one of the first times I accompanied my parents on this trip. They had tried to shield us from a lot of Dad's mental illness. It was never a secret, how could it possibly be, when he had regularly required hospital admittance for over 20 years... either because of one of several suicide attempts (at least 6 that we know of) or like now, because either he or my mother could no longer cope without some drastic intervention. But until more recently, Mum had made this trip with Dad on her own, or he had gone by ambulance.
But I was older this time, around 20, and at that stage, the only child living at home, having returned home the year before after 15 months living in a share house. And so I had offered to go with them, mainly so that Mum wouldn't have to deal with what must have been an awful trip home alone afterwards.
Dad was finally smiling... he liked the hospital. Looking back now I realise my father was at his happiest when he was institutionalised. He loved the time he was sent to a boys home in his misspent youth as a punishment, and cried when his father came to take him home. Talked fondly of the 12 months spent in a sanatorium as an 18 year old, while recovering from tuberculosis. Enjoyed the Supported Residential Service he lived in for nearly a decade later in life and the Nursing Home he lived in before he died. I think he liked the routines, the orderliness. Someone told you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat and what to do.
So we left him there, Mum and I... on a cold Saturday afternoon, and we walked through the gardens of the hospital up to the bus stop to go home. While we waited, we talked, and Mum said, "I don't want to go home yet, let's go to the movies". "What will we see?" says I. "I don't know, let's decide when we get there" says she.
It was full dark by the time we got into the city, and raining heavily. We had no choice but to submerge ourselves in water pouring along the gutters of Russell Street, as the drains overflowed with the force of the rainfall. So we were both wet from the knees down as we laughed and raced for cover. My new indian cotton jacket started to disintegrate (literally falling to pieces) as the rain touched it... in the end I left it, a sodden mess wedged under the seat.
We stood at the ticketbox, looking at the titles of films, and their starting times, trying to decide what to see. "That film's supposed to be good" says I. "What's it about?" says Mum. "I don't know, but Robert Redford directed it, and Donald Sutherland's in it" says I. "Ok, I like Donald Sutherland" says Mum. So we bought tickets...
The film was Ordinary People... ironic but fitting that we should chose a film that deals with families, grief, and the aftermath of attempted suicide. It had a profound effect on me then, and watching it again more recently, it still has the power to affect me, but in surprising ways, considering the subject matter.
Timothy Hutton, plays Conrad Jarrett, a young man only recently returned home from a long hospitalisation following a suicide attempt. He and his parents, Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) live in an idyllic, affluent neighbourhood, but are struggling following the tragedy of the death of their oldest son, Buck, who drowns when the boat he and Conrad were sailing capsizes.
This is a quiet, understated, but devastating film, as you watch this family unravel before your eyes. You only see brief glimpses of the accident in flashback, late in the film, and even the fact that there is something wrong with this family, only becomes apparent slowly. One of those times where a film allows the audience to find out things as the story unfolds without ramming it down your throat.
At 20, my sympathies were primarily focused on Conrad, but even then, I realised that in a lot of ways, he was the strongest character of them all. His attempts to understand not only what happened to his brother, but also his role in the accident, his place within the family and in his relationships is heartbreaking, but at the same time life affirming. But even the first time, I felt for all of these characters and felt some affinity with them all, an affinity I felt even more in my most recent viewing.
The caring but ultimately powerless Calvin, who wants his remaining family to be happy and his attempts to navigate some form of understanding between his young son and wife. This was Donald Sutherland at his best, where just a look has the power to move you to tears.
Calvin: Don't admire people too much, they might disappoint you.
And Beth, a woman who on the surface appears incredibly cold and unloving, but is both in deep denial and pain. There are scenes in this film when you just want to scream at her, for the way she ignores Conrad, but you come to understand that she can't allow herself to be close to him, to anyone. It's not that she doesn't love him, she just can't love him in the way that he so desperately needs, it's just not in her nature.
Conrad: You woulda visited Buck if he was in the hospital.
Beth : Buck would have never been in the hospital!
For all of it's emotion, the film has some lovely moments. Judd Hirsch is brilliant as Dr. Berger, the therapist that Conrad starts to visit, under duress, and their scenes together are both painful and funny.
Dr. Berger: So what are you thinking now?
Conrad: That I jack off a lot.
Dr. Berger: So what else is new? Does it help?
Conrad: For a minute.
Elizabeth McGovern is a delight as the fellow student with whom Conrad starts a tentative relationship.
Conrad: Anyway.
Jeannine: Hm, what?
Conrad: Oh just anyway. It's a conversation starter.
Jeannine: Hm, catchy.
Conrad: I knew you'd like it, I've been working on it all day.
I think this film deserved it's Oscar win, and the Best Director Oscar for Redford, and unfortunately I don't think Timothy Hutton has bettered this performance, he should have been nominated for Best Actor, as it is very much his film, not the Best Supporting Actor award that he won.
And I'd heartily recommend it... as a film that makes you think, about love and the different ways we all need and express it, about the nature of families and the way people change and react following tragedy.
Calvin (to Beth): We would have been all right if there hadn't been any mess. But you can't handle mess. You need everything neat and easy. I don't know. Maybe you can't love anybody. It was so much Buck. When Buck died, it was like you buried all your love with him, and I don't understand that, I just don't know, I don't... maybe it wasn't even Buck; maybe it was just you. Maybe, finally, it was the best of you that you buried. But whatever it was... I don't know who you are. I don't know what we've been playing at. So I was crying. Because I don't know if I love you any more. And I don't know what I'm going to do without that.
I've watched this film several times over the years, it was one of the first video's we borrowed when we bought our first VCR, and I now own my own DVD. Every time I watch it, I flashback to that first viewing, sitting next to my Mum, with sopping wet feet, sharing a single tissue between us (we peeled the tissues ply apart). And it seems strange, that I still count this as one of my favourite films, you'd think I would avoid it.
But seeing that film, that night, helped a lot. It was the first time I ever saw a film that looked at the issue of suicide in this way. And while the end of the film is incredibly sad, it's also quite hopeful... and it helped me to understand not only the role my father and his illness played in my own life and my own thought processes, but my mother's role in that too.
I am, or have been, all of those characters at different times. The child, desperately trying to understand the parent and have them love them. The man, desperate to stop his family from disintegrating around him. And the woman, desperate to pretend that everything is right in her world...
