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Ordinary People (novel)
Encyclopedia
Ordinary People is Judith Guest
's first novel
. Published in 1976
, it tells the story of a year in the life of the Jarretts, an affluent suburb
an family trying to cope with the aftermath of two traumatic events.
Although it won critical praise and awards upon its release, it is best remembered today as the basis for the 1980
film version
, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture
. It is also assigned in many American secondary school
English
classes.
, Illinois
, in September 1975. It is slightly more than a year since their elder son "Buck" was killed when a sudden storm came up while he and their other son Conrad were sailing
on Lake Michigan
. Six months later, a severely depressed
Conrad attempted suicide
by slashing his wrist
s with a razor
in the bathroom. His parents committed him to a psychiatric hospital
from which he has only recently returned after eight months of treatment. He is attending school and trying to resume his life, but knows he still has unresolved issues, particularly with his mother, Beth, who has never really recovered from Buck's death and keeps an almost maniacally perfect household and family.
His father Calvin, a successful tax
attorney
, gently leans on him to make appointments to see a local psychiatrist
, Dr. Tyrone Berger. Initially resistant, he slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger and comes to terms with the root cause of his depression, his identity crisis
and survivor's guilt over having survived when Buck did not. Also helping is a relationship with a new girlfriend, Jeannine Pratt.
Calvin sees Dr. Berger as the events of the recent past have caused him to begin to doubt many things he once took for granted, leading to a midlife crisis
. This leads to strain in his marriage as he finds Beth increasingly cold and distant, while she in turn believes he is overly concerned about Conrad to the point of being manipulated. Finally the friction becomes enough that Beth decides to leave him at the novel's climax
. Father and son, however, have closed the gap between them.
Three other characters do not appear in the story directly
but have a strong effect on it nonetheless, recalled extensively by Conrad and Calvin:
.
alternate between Conrad and Calvin, in third person limited omniscient
narration entirely in the present tense
. Readers are privy to their thoughts but not those of the other characters in the scene, not even Cal or Conrad if they happen to intrude. The narrative frequently goes into patches of italicized interior monologue and stream of consciousness.
The novel also circles around both the accident that killed Buck and Conrad's suicide attempt. In the initial chapters they are both only referenced or discussed in the most general terms; later on we learn more details and finally get brief flashback
s from Conrad.
, but found herself writing more and more as she explored the characters in greater depth, wanting to know more about their backgrounds. "Before I knew it," she says "I was 200 pages in". It took her three years to write, after she gave up her teaching
job and decided to concentrate on actually finishing a novel.
It became focused on the psychology
of the characters, particularly Conrad.
yet. The first publisher she sent it to rejected it. The second sent a rejection letter that read in part: "While the book has some satiric
bite, overall the level of writing does not sustain interest and we will have to decline it." An editor
at Viking Press
bought the manuscript
, but the company waited eight months before putting it out, the first time in 26 years it had published an unsolicited manuscript.
It would go on to win the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
for best first novel. Ninety thousand copies were sold in hardback; Robert Redford
, who would eventually direct the film, acquired the rights before publication (actually traveling to Guest's suburban Minnesota
home to do so). Since 1976, half a million copies of the paperback have been sold.
(and sometimes middle school
) English
classes due its young-adult protagonist. This has led to some challenges to its inclusion on reading lists and curricula
due to not only the subject matter but a short scene near the end of the novel where Conrad and Jeannine make love
. The American Library Association
ranked it 59th on its list of the hundred most frequently challenged books in school libraries during the 1990s.
bought the rights to Guest's manuscript before it was published, intending not to act in it but make his directorial debut with the film. It
was released in 1980, winning that year's Academy Award for Best Picture
. Redford and Timothy Hutton
also received Oscars for directing and acting
, respectively.
It has also been adapted into a play.
Judith Guest
Judith Guest is an American novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Detroit, Michigan and is the great-niece of Poet Laureate Edgar Guest .- Work :...
's first novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
. Published in 1976
1976 in literature
The year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-New books:*Kingsley Amis – The Alteration...
, it tells the story of a year in the life of the Jarretts, an affluent suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
an family trying to cope with the aftermath of two traumatic events.
Although it won critical praise and awards upon its release, it is best remembered today as the basis for the 1980
1980 in film
- Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....
film version
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton....
, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. It is also assigned in many American secondary school
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
English
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
classes.
Title
Plot summary
The novel begins as life is seemingly returning to normal for the Jarretts of Lake ForestLake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, in September 1975. It is slightly more than a year since their elder son "Buck" was killed when a sudden storm came up while he and their other son Conrad were sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
on Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
. Six months later, a severely depressed
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
Conrad attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by slashing his wrist
Wrist
In human anatomy, the wrist is variously defined as 1) the carpus or carpal bones, the complex of eight bones forming the proximal skeletal segment of the hand;...
s with a razor
Razor
A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of unwanted body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, disposable razors and electric razors....
in the bathroom. His parents committed him to a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
from which he has only recently returned after eight months of treatment. He is attending school and trying to resume his life, but knows he still has unresolved issues, particularly with his mother, Beth, who has never really recovered from Buck's death and keeps an almost maniacally perfect household and family.
His father Calvin, a successful tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, gently leans on him to make appointments to see a local psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
, Dr. Tyrone Berger. Initially resistant, he slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger and comes to terms with the root cause of his depression, his identity crisis
Identity crisis (psychology)
"Identity crisis is the failure to achieve ego identity during adolescence." The term was coined by the psychologist Erik Erikson. The stage of psychosocial development in which identity crisis may occur is called the Identity Cohesion versus Role Confusion stage...
and survivor's guilt over having survived when Buck did not. Also helping is a relationship with a new girlfriend, Jeannine Pratt.
Calvin sees Dr. Berger as the events of the recent past have caused him to begin to doubt many things he once took for granted, leading to a midlife crisis
Midlife Crisis
"Midlife Crisis" is a song by the American rock band Faith No More. It was released on May 26, 1992 as the first single from their fourth album, Angel Dust...
. This leads to strain in his marriage as he finds Beth increasingly cold and distant, while she in turn believes he is overly concerned about Conrad to the point of being manipulated. Finally the friction becomes enough that Beth decides to leave him at the novel's climax
Climax (narrative)
The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
. Father and son, however, have closed the gap between them.
Characters
- Conrad Keith Jarrett, the son of Beth and Calvin, "Con" or "Connie" to his family and friends. He celebrates his 18th birthday midway through the novel. Like his late brother, he is a good swimmerSwimming (sport)Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, but quits the school swim team because being around water reminds him too much of Buck. He had always been somewhat overshadowed by his brother. He has passive tendencies as well. - Calvin Jarrett, 41, "Cal". His professional success has enabled him to provide a very comfortable life to his wife and sons, which for a long time was a source of great pride to him as he had himself grown up in a DetroitDetroit, MichiganDetroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
orphanageOrphanageAn orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
without ever knowing his father. His mother died when he was eleven. He has long felt lucky, but the family's recent travails have caused him to begin to doubt that and wonder who he really is. - Beth Jarrett, 39. A homemakerHomemakerHomemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
who has long kept the Jarrett household neat and well-organized, to the point of being anal retentiveAnal retentiveThe term anal-retentive , commonly abbreviated to anal, is used conversationally to describe a person who pays such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others, and can be carried out to the detriment of the anal-retentive person. The term derives from Freudian...
. She plays golfGolfGolf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and is very active in the community but does not work outside the home. The novel gives little detail of her personal background, not even her maiden name, although her still-living parents provide some clues as to how she might have become this way. - Dr. Tyrone Berger, the psychiatrist who helps Conrad work through his issues.
- Jeannine Pratt, a new student at Lake Forest who eventually becomes Conrad's girlfriendGirlfriendGirlfriend is a term that can refer to either a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship or a female non-romantic friend that is closer than other friends....
. Like him, she has a dark episode in her recent past. - Joe Lazenby, one of Conrad's friends, who drives him to school. Alone among the swimmers, he recognizes that Conrad is still having difficulties. Conrad and he have a falling out during the novel, but they manage to mend their relationship towards the end.
- Kevin Stillman, A member of Lazenby's carpool and the swim team's diverDivingDiving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
, a group of people Conrad has long concluded are generally lousy human beings. He can be very insensitive, and not just to Conrad (he is known to make suggestive comments to passing girls). One day after Conrad has quit the team, he and Conrad get into a fist fight which Conrad wins. - Carole Lazenby, Joe Lazenby's mother, and a friend of Beth Jarrett.
- Ray Hanley, Calvin's law partner and longtime friend. Calvin had consoled Ray seven years earlier during a time when his wife Nancy had left him over an extramarital affairAffairAffair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity of a temporary duration, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romantic affair.-Political affair:...
he was having; now Ray returns the favor. - Nancy Hanley, Ray's wife, very disillusioned about marriageMarriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
even though she took her husband back and seems to be continuing to live with him. At one point she tells Calvin she wishes Ray had just stayed with his girlfriend. - Cherry, 19, Ray and Calvin's current secretarySecretaryA secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
. Calvin does not think her competent at her job despite her pleasant personality, and he and Ray both lament the lack of talent once available to them. Her breakup with her boyfriend leads Calvin to ruminate about how "people are like icebergs ... only one-seventh visible". - Howard, Beth's father. Very jovial, he often speaks in clichéClichéA cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s. - Ellen, Beth's mother. Her outward cordiality masks critical tendencies similar to her daughter. At one point Calvin speculates that Beth's fastidiousness may be a response to Ellen's personality.
- Karen Susan Aldrich, a fellow patient at the hospital and friend to Conrad. Released three months before him, and likewise an unsuccessful suicide. When Conrad reads of her later, successful suicide in the newspaper, he is devastated as he had seen her as a role model for his own successful recovery.
- Mr. Faughnan, the choir director at Lake Forest. He is a perfectionist who cares only that his choir perform well, and does not take a personal interest in any of its members. This allows Conrad to relax in the class.
- Coach Salan, the swimming coach at Lake Forest. While he allows Conrad two days a week off to see Dr. Berger and stays late with him to work out on the other days, Conrad does not like him. He only begrudgingly allowed Conrad to rejoin the team, and once told Conrad that a friend of his with similar problems had "been in and out of institutions his entire life". When Dr. Berger says that remark may have been simply a sign that he didn't know what else to say, Conrad responds that it was simply "stupid".
Three other characters do not appear in the story directly
Diegesis
Diegesis is a style of representation in fiction and is:# the world in which the situations and events narrated occur; and# telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.In diegesis the narrator tells the story...
but have a strong effect on it nonetheless, recalled extensively by Conrad and Calvin:
- Jordan "Buck" Jarrett, the son who died in the sailing accident. Conrad and Calvin's memories depict Buck as a daredevil but also something of a natural leader, and a son any family would have liked to have.
- Dr. Crawford, a psychiatrist at the hospital who had helped Conrad. Conrad trusted him as the only doctor who really understood him, and he refers Conrad to Berger.
- Arnold Bacon, Calvin's mentor and father figureFather Figure"Father Figure" is the U.S. number-one song written and performed by George Michael and released on Columbia Records in 1988 as the third single from the album Faith.-History:...
in collegeCollegeA college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
and law schoolLaw schoolA law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
, dead a few years before the story starts. He and Cal had stopped talking while he was still a student because not only did he disapprove of law students marrying, he felt Beth was "not a sharer" (Beth in turn felt Bacon was trying to "own" Cal).
Major themes
Loss and the different ways people deal with it are a major theme of Ordinary People. Conrad loses not only his brother but a good portion of his then-self when Buck dies. His father finds himself re-examining his life and seeing it more the result of random chance and accident than any ability on his part. Beth tries to control it like everything else in her life. She and Conrad were, Calvin notes, the only people not to cry at Buck's funeralFuneral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
.
Technique
Guest's chaptersChapter (books)
A chapter is one of the main divisions of a piece of writing of relative length, such as a book. Chapters can be numbered in the case of such writings as law code or they can be titled. For example, the first chapters of some well-known novels are titled:*"The Boy Who Lived" – Harry Potter...
alternate between Conrad and Calvin, in third person limited omniscient
Third person limited omniscient
The third-person omniscient is a narrative mode in which the reader is presented the story by a narrator with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, regardless of the presence of certain characters, including everything all of the...
narration entirely in the present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
. Readers are privy to their thoughts but not those of the other characters in the scene, not even Cal or Conrad if they happen to intrude. The narrative frequently goes into patches of italicized interior monologue and stream of consciousness.
The novel also circles around both the accident that killed Buck and Conrad's suicide attempt. In the initial chapters they are both only referenced or discussed in the most general terms; later on we learn more details and finally get brief flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s from Conrad.
Origin
Guest began Ordinary People as a short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, but found herself writing more and more as she explored the characters in greater depth, wanting to know more about their backgrounds. "Before I knew it," she says "I was 200 pages in". It took her three years to write, after she gave up her teaching
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
job and decided to concentrate on actually finishing a novel.
It became focused on the psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
of the characters, particularly Conrad.
I wanted to explore the anatomy of depressionClinical depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
— how it works and why it happens to people; how you can go from being down but able to handle it, to being so down that you don’t even want to handle it, and then taking a radical step with your life — trying to commit suicide — and failing at that, coming back to the world and having to "act normal" when, in fact, you have been forever changed.
Publication
Guest did not have an agentLiterary agent
A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers and film producers and assists in the sale and deal negotiation of the same. Literary agents most often represent novelists, screenwriters and major non-fiction writers...
yet. The first publisher she sent it to rejected it. The second sent a rejection letter that read in part: "While the book has some satiric
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
bite, overall the level of writing does not sustain interest and we will have to decline it." An editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
at Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
bought the manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
, but the company waited eight months before putting it out, the first time in 26 years it had published an unsolicited manuscript.
It would go on to win the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize
The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is annually awarded for fiction by an American woman.The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester have awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction by an American woman since...
for best first novel. Ninety thousand copies were sold in hardback; Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
, who would eventually direct the film, acquired the rights before publication (actually traveling to Guest's suburban Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
home to do so). Since 1976, half a million copies of the paperback have been sold.
Legacy
In the wake of the film version, the novel has been assigned in many American high schoolHigh school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
(and sometimes middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
) English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
classes due its young-adult protagonist. This has led to some challenges to its inclusion on reading lists and curricula
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
due to not only the subject matter but a short scene near the end of the novel where Conrad and Jeannine make love
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
. The American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
ranked it 59th on its list of the hundred most frequently challenged books in school libraries during the 1990s.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Robert RedfordRobert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
bought the rights to Guest's manuscript before it was published, intending not to act in it but make his directorial debut with the film. It
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton....
was released in 1980, winning that year's Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Redford and Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
also received Oscars for directing and acting
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, respectively.
It has also been adapted into a play.