Why So Blu?

Ordinary People – Paramount Presents (Blu-ray Review)

Its always fascinatingly bizarre to me when a former Best Picture winner doesn’t wind up on a home video format until way down the road. In this case, 1980’s Ordinary People, directed by Hollywood legend Robert Redford, is finally making its debut on Blu-ray 16 years into the format’s life and when its been the “previous format” for 6 years. I guess that’s one year for every Oscar the film won back in 1981. Better late than never, and probably treated better here as its been given a 4K restoration overseen by Redford and includes a new interview with Timothy Hutton and the author of the book. Ordinary People has been given the Paramount Presents treatment and was released on March 29th. You can order yourself a copy of it by utilizing the paid Amazon Associates link that follows the review below.

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Film

Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton give powerful and moving performances as a family being torn apart by tragedy and the unrelenting pressure to maintain a façade of normalcy. ORDINARY PEOPLE marked Hutton’s first film role and his performance not only earned him the Oscar® for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, but it also made him the youngest person to win in the category. Redford would wind up taking home Best Director as well.

Prior to reviewing this title, I had not seen Robert Redford’s Ordinary People before. It was a blind spot for me on Best Picture winners and highly decorated Academy Award winning films. I was happy to rectify that and found myself probably undervaluing it over the years as it beat much flashier films like Raging Bull and The Elephant Man, which left the sort of cultural footprint and legacy that Ordinary People didn’t quite do.

Ordinary People is far ahead of its time in a lot of its deconstructions and values preyed upon with the Jarrett family featured in the film. Coming from a novel that arrived four years earlier, the narrative and characters here feel almost prophetic on what would be the white suburban life of the 1980s and 90s. Had this movie had some sort of cultural footprint, it probably would have been in the form of a human movement, but rather people likely enjoyed the film but reflected and said “Well, that’s not me/us” despite relating to a lot of what they just took in.

Timothy Hutton and his character of Conrad Jarrett is quite a revelation. Hutton’s performance is pretty unreal and incredibly deserving of the Oscar he took home. Its incredibly tough to be that genuine and almost documentary like in terms of becoming someone. His scenes with Judd Nelson are pretty outstanding and probably some of the better highlights of the picture. Conrad himself is a character in a lifelike drama that probably never gets their tale, or has it in a very swept under the rug or glamorized version. His dealing with suicide, grief, depression and therapy feel like they would be all new things in a mainstream prestige film about family life when it comes to 1980.

Overall here, everyone is doing stellar business. Redford’s direction is quite clever and even more so when you learn some of his methods. Sutherland and Moore are outstanding, too. You’ll be surprise that Donald Sutherland was the only one not nominated. And how could he not when you see one of his final scenes. I wouldn’t call Ordinary People an underrated film, but perhaps one people aren’t putting high on their list in terms of checking out or revisiting and one that certainly is overlooked in the film geek conversations of great dramas and films in general.

Video

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Layers: BD-50

Clarity/Detail: Ordinary People’s long awaited Blu-ray review, via the Paramount Presents line, features a new 4K restoration of the film overseen by Robert Redford.  The film looks quite lovely, with really great details, including the clothing, upholstery and humans on display in the film. Its got a nice filmic look to everything with good, natural autumn colors and the transfer handles the black levels quite expertly. The movie definitely has a “look” its going for and the artistry becomes even more apparent with this transfer.

Depth:  The film has a nice open feel to it, no matter how enclosed a room is. Each environment as a nice well rounded, pushed back nature to its backdrop. Movement is filmic and smooth, with no issues regarding any sort of motion distortions, jitter or blur.

Black Levels: Blacks are deep and close to natural. The shadows of a home really look nifty and carry some added definition as well as good tints to keep track of details and not lose them. No crush witnessed.

Color Reproduction: Colors and the films overall tone is one that is very autumn in the look and feel. The greens and oranges feel strong. Overall its an even, natural to life looking palette. Saturation is very nice here and it’d be cool to see it improve even further onto a proper 4K Ultra-HD disc.

Flesh Tones: Skin tones are natural and consistent from start to finish of the film. Facial features and textures are discernible from any given distance in the frame.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean.

Audio

Audio Format(s): English 2.0 Mono Dolby TrueHD, German 2.0 Mono Dolby Digital, Spanish (Spain) 2.0 Mono Dolby Digital, French 2.0 Mono Dolby Digital, Japanese 2.0 Mono Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English, English SDH, German, Spanish (Spain), French, Japanese

Dynamics: Ordinary People features its original mono theatrical mix, presented in Dolby TrueHD form. This is a dialogue heavy film, but captures much of the music and foley effect work brilliantly, woven together as one natural piece. Its balanced and really keeps up a nice, louder presentation that is as engaging as a familial drama from 1980 is going to power though your system with.

Height: N/A

Low Frequency Extension: N/A

Surround Sound Presentation: N/A

Dialogue Reproduction:  Vocals are clear and crisp. The bread and butter of this mix, the diction, clarity and depth of the lingual nature come through with terrific quality. No issues arise from any sort of peaking with any of the shouty scenes.

Extras

Ordinary People in first pressing, comes with a slip cover that folds open to reveal the original poster art for the film. It also comes with a redeemable digital copy.

Swimming In The Rose Garden (HD, 10:55) – An interview with star Timothy Hutton, who took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as “Conrad” in the film. Hutton talks about how great Redford was with each actor, and how he created a sense of isolation on set for Hutton without him being aware of it. This interview also includes some behind the scenes stills as well.

Feeling Is Not Selective (HD, 5:35) – Judith Guest, author of the novel the movie is based on, talks the disbelief in Robert Redford writing here and calling her with his interest in making the film. She says while she met with Redford, she was more involved with Alvin Sargent with the script of the film. Guest thought Timothy Hutton was “perfect” and that he picked her brain on set a lot and Redford told her that she needed to stop giving him tid bits.

Theatrical Trailer (SD, 2:29)

Summary

Surely looked at now as that uncool drama film about wealthy white yuppies that beat out both Raging Bull and The Elephant Man for Best Picture, if you ACTUALLY WATCH Ordinary People, you can see it was worthy of being in the company. Paramount gives the film a lovely restoration for its debut on Blu-ray and some nifty new interviews to serve as the supplemental material. Having been fresh to this one, I was surprised at how much more clever it is than it appears on the surface and how ahead of the decade that would follow it was. An easy pickup for the cinema faithful.

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