Ordinary People and the Twilight of Male Vulnerability

In this latest volume of Ig's popular Auteur series, New York Times bestselling author Steve Almond (Candyfreak, Against Football) examines the legacy of Ordinary People, Robert Redford's 1980 Oscar winning film, which he sees as a masterpiece of male vulnerability.

Almond regards the film as a masterpiece of psychological drama, one of the few films that outshines its own literary source material.

The film offered Almond and his brothers a private language, with which they could articulate anxieties and terrors that they couldn't always speak about openly, even as the children of two psychoanalysts. As a man struggling with the demise of his marriage, Almond sees the film as a kind of requiem for the happy, vibrant family he hoped to create.

He also sees Ordinary People as a powerful reminder of the values that prevailed before a rising tide of American cruelty, which has celebrated masculine rage and violence as a means to power. The movie isn't just about a grieving family, but a nation that has surrendered its capacity to love openly, to mourn collectively, and to forgive.