Mediaite Presents Our Favorite Christmas Holiday-Themed Movies
Ordinary People – Mediaite Managing Editor Colby Hall
Christmas movies seem to hold an odd spot in people’s hearts. Whether it’s the nostalgia or appreciation of campy commercialism (or maybe even a nostalgic appreciation for camp!) holiday movies become our favorites because of the familiarity of an impossibly simpler and, yes more festive happier time. Who doesn’t love A Christmas Story and the Red Rider BB gun? I didn’t grow up in the 40s but my father loved the short stories of Gene Sheppard, and that movie came out the year before my father passed away, so yes, that movie ranks up there pretty high. But there is another ‘holiday” movie that my father loved, and insisted that we see together as a family: Ordinary People.
No one will ever confuse the the Academy Award winning film as a feel good movie – the casting of Mary Tyler Moore (known best as proto-feminist and single working woman Mary Richards) as a cold-hearted and distant bitch of a mother was but one the many reasons why this movie is so genius. But the overarching theme of this film is how family members cope with serious dysfunction brought by the loss of a family member. And while its not specifically about the Holidays, much of the film is set with a Christmas cheer background that provides a stark contrast to the family turmoil on which the film focuses.
Based on a novel by Judith Guest, Ordinary People evokes Gustav Courbet‘s age of realism, finding art, emotion and meaning in the sincere portrayal in the most mundane: most of us do in fact lead a life of quiet desperation. The ending of the film is not the typical Hollywood ending: the family splits up over the insurmountable grieving, but not before protagonist Connie (played brilliantly by Timothy Hutton) begins the process of clearing his own troubled psychology. It’s a different sort of Christmas story because it forgoes saccharine storytelling, and instead examines in the messiness of life in the most moving and meaningful way.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
