Ordinary People: Movie Analysis

In the movie, Ordinary People, the Jarrett family struggles with Buck’s death as their s struggling with survivor's guilt. The living son, Conrad, spends months in a hospital recovering from attempt at suicide and sees a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger, in attempt to recover from the boating tragedy. Conrad and his father, Calvin both want to talk about the death of Buck, but the mother, Beth, wants to avoid all conversation with his name involved. Though they have difficulty with this event the family does in fact communicate, but it is very less than good and often strained with some form of violence that is often easily fixable if they create safety and allow another to talk about how they feel. Throughout the movie Conrad makes progression
toward recovering from his brother’s death and shows a lot of silence for instance; Conrad answering his father in only one syllable words as withdrawing and avoiding conversation by making it clear Conrad wanted his father out of his room. When Conrad got upset up at the dinner table in the morning he fled the table in a rush to leave the conversation and was another example of how he displayed silence with withdrawal. Conrad reacted violently when his psychiatrist wanted him to open up, insulting him and his family as his psychiatrist wanted him to let lose his emotions using displacement, and when his friend wanted to know why he had quit the swim team. Beth was easily distraught by the near mention of Buck’s untimely unfortunate event. Beth would lash out and attack the other person for trying to talk about something in which they felt guilty so the family has no safety in talking and no one for them to tell for they all do not want to get in the others problems.