Dysfunction Of The Family In The Film Ordinary People

The film Ordinary People follows the family of a once suicidal teenage boy, Conrad, who is dealing with severe survivor's guilt after the death of his older brother, Buck, at sea. Throughout the movie, dysfunction within the family is very evident on many different occasions. Each of the three remaining members of the household; Beth Jarrett, Calvin Jarrett and, as mentioned before, Conrad Jarrett, demonstrate many instances where inadequacy in conflict management is clearly shown. If not for these deficiencies, however, the family would have been able to better cope and recover from the loss of Buck.
Beth, Conrad’s mom, seems to care about nothing more than her reputation, which proves to be a key reason for the family's professedly endless grieving. She herself has not dealt with the grief brought on by the death of Buck. She constantly has her guard up and is quick to steer away from any situation that even remotely pertains to her life before the tragedy. As a result, she struggles greatly

He too, like Beth, practiced repression when dealing with Buck's death. Throughout the film, he is perceived as a sort of mediator between mom and son and serves as the rational superego that his wife does not have. In doing this, he is consistently honest and genuinely voices his thoughts and feeling, which occasionally cause him to sound demeaning and critical. His main problem in conflict management is failing to validate other’s feelings which consequently cause the receiver to feel emotionally insecure. This can be demonstrated when he was with Beth on the golf course. After suggesting Conrad be a part of the next vacation, an argument erupted and he more or less discredited everything she said, further stressing the already minuscule emotional safety between the two. Other than a couple of other minor scenes, Calvin really did not display much management