There are many factors that contribute to solid relationships. In the film “Ordinary People,” after the sudden accidental death of the oldest son, Buck, the younger brother Conrad, survives, yet he’s deeply disturbed and attempts suicide. Communication can hold a relationship together, whereas the absence of communication can tear it apart. When a traumatic affair occurs, some families strengthen and battle the despair and misery together, while others become emotionally hidden and detached from one another. The latter is the case for the Jarrett family. There are several relationships displayed in the flim which illustrate either a positive or negative appearance. Strategies of conflict management could have helped their relationship. Conrad, Beth, and Calvin Jarrett engage in acts of “silence” and “violence” multiple times …show more content…
They had been fighting for weeks. Although he loves his wife greatly and knows she cares about Conrad deeply, he disagrees with the way she does not demonstrate affection towards Conrad. He struggles to communicate with his wife about his concern of her and Conrad’s relationship and Buck’s accident. When Calvin does try to talk to her about her lack of feelings toward her son, she blocks them out. After Conrad gives Beth a sincere, authentic hug, she freezes and that is when Calvin realizes he did not know if he loved her anymore. Later that evening, Beth wakes up in the middle of the night to find Calvin sitting downstairs sobbing by himself in the dark. When Beth came down and approached him, she just stands there staring at him. Once Calvin confronted the situation between them, Beth’s response was half-hearted and apathetic. He tells her that she is incapable of love and that she is basically a stranger to him now. Beth uses silence, avoids the situation, steers away from the sensitive issues and handles it poorly by deciding to depart from the
In the movie Ordinary People, the Jarrett Family seems like a normal family with the Mother Beth, Father Calvin, and their son Conrad. Even though they seem like a happy family, in reality they have lost a family member and have unresolved issues and conflicts. Conrad’s brother Buck died in a boating accident and Conrad survived and feels major guilt that he is alive and Buck isn’t.This results in an overall awkward/uncomfortable and cold environment especially for Conrad. If they had used conflict management it could’ve helped resolve the issues and possibly kept their family together. The Jarrett family seems to either act out in fight or flight on each other and others. Conrad and his parents could have used conflict management strategies like mutual purpose to help resolve the tension and keep the family together.
After coming out of the hospital, Conrad is forced to relearn how to deal with every day situations. Learning how to establish routines and manage his own life is Conrad's first step on his way to recovery and self-discovery. Beth deals with Conrad's suicide attempt in a very different way, she is very enclosed and in a constant state of denial. This is just the first of many actions until she reveals her true colors. "Will you talk to him this morning? About the clothes. He's got a closet full of decent things and he goes off every day looking like a bum, Cal" (7).
In the book Ordinary People, Conrad Jarrett has a good life and loving family when his brother dies in a sailboating accident. Conrad feels lost and confused and he attempts to take his own life as a way out. He spends eight months in a mental institution and when he comes out he discovered he is a completely different person and has the realization that his old definition of normality no longer applies. A once-unified family splits into three guarded, isolated members who can no longer share anything with one another.
According to smith and Hamon (2012), Families are considered as a whole in society. However, they believed that couples have many components in which makes up the family, if one component is missing, the family as a whole can get unbalance (Smith & Hamon, 2012). In the Brice’s family, communication was the component that was missing. The couple was not able to communicate their differences, which was what caused Carolyn and David to verbally insult each other. Smith and Hamon (2012), also explain that a person who expresses his or her feeling is considered as someone who is breaking the functions of their family system; especially if the person is focusing on the individual who is causing the problem, rather than the problem itself. In the Brice family, Carolyn could be considered the one that cause the dysfunction in the family structure because she was focusing on David as the problem of their marriage, rather than focusing of the elements that are causing their problems. Smith and Hamon (2012) explain that individuals should focus on how to solve a problem, rather than trying to find who is causing the
...lt that he caused problems to everyone with whom he had contact. After much struggle, however, Conrad realized that he was not the problem and that he did not need to hold back his feelings. Calvin originally thought that Beth was perfect and was confused as to the extent of his responsibility as a father. With Dr. Berger's help, Calvin came to understand that Beth was not the ideal mother and that the things he blamed himself for were not really his fault. The conclusion can be drawn that one needs external help in order to develop psychologically. Calvin and Conrad voluntarily met with Dr. Berger in search of assistance while Beth refused his aid. This may be the reason that Beth was not able to reach emotional maturity while Calvin and Conrad matured greatly.
After Conrad's release from the hospital he has difficulty rekindling his past relationships, especially with his mother. His mother, Beth, seems cynical through Conrad's perspective; she doesn't show interest in any aspect of his life, she ignores
Poor Kids is a documentary that highlights a major issue the United States is suffering from. This issue is known as poverty, more specifically, childhood poverty. This documentary views the world through the eyes of children that are subjected to lives of poverty due to the poor financial state that their parents are in. Life is very rough for these children and they must live their everyday lives with little to none of the luxuries most people take for granted. Poor Kids sheds light on the painful fact that there are children that starve every day in the United States.
troubles, Calvin would keep trying and didn't give up. Calvin really cared for Conrad and wanted him to share his feelings and emotions. For example, there was a scene when Calvin would walk into Conrad's room just to make sure he was doing fine. Calvin not only showed his affections nonverbally, he showed them verbally also. He wanted to see his son back to life, back to who he was.
Comedy films are often a tough sell in Hollywood. The humor that is popular here, The United States, usually does not translate well overseas. Many of the movies rely on sarcasm and overused jokes, which could translate differently overseas, and could even offend different cultures. So when a comedy movie goes big worldwide, it deserves all the attention it receives. The movie Airplane! Is a great example of a film that is well liked worldwide.
The world they live in demonstrates the worst parts of humanity, forcing their relationship to be that of two survivors, not of a family. In times of distress and danger, it is not uncommon for the relationships between people to change,
Calvin responds in a “fight” manner when on the golf course with his wife and friends. Calvin becomes heated when Beth approaches him about wanting to be alone without Conrad on vacation. An example of a “flight” response from Conrad is when he wants to get a divorce with his wife. Calvin runs from the issues with his wife but wanting a divorce rather than confronting the underlying problems. In both of these examples crucial conversations need to take place. By having a crucial conversation they could address the obvious and underlying problems that exist in the relationship. When having a conversation they must remember to maintain a non-judgemental tone, calm voice, and reassure each other of what they do have. These techniques will allow for much more progress in the relationship than screaming
Within the German Democratic Republic, there was a secret police force known as the Stasi, which was responsible for state surveillance, attempting to permeate every facet of life. Agents within and informants tied to the Stasi were both feared and hated, as there was no true semblance of privacy for most citizens. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie The Lives of Others follows one particular Stasi agent as he carries out his mission to spy on a well-known writer and his lover. As the film progresses, the audience is able to see the moral transformation of Stasi Captain Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler primarily through the director 's use of the script, colors and lighting, and music.
“Ordinary People” is a deeply moving film that brought me to tears. I agree that the use of Bowen’s theory could be quite helpful for the Jarrett Family. The use of process questions is a good intervention technique that calms the anxieties in this family and uncovers each member’s thought process. “If process questions decrease anxiety, members will be able to think more clearly, which allows them to discover more potential options for managing their problems” (Nichols & Davis, 2017, p. 88). Also, the intervention of relationship experiments could aid the Jarrett family in acknowledging that it is not just their actions, but also how they respond to each other’s actions which allow the problems to continue. “Distancers are encouraged to move
Lack of communication and poor communication is a big problem in the novel. Beth thinks she and Conrad have poor communication. This is clear when Beth gets mad at Conrad be cause wasn’t the first to know that he quit swim team. Calvin and Beth have communication issues too. They always have different views on things. Beth wanted to go on vacation and Calvin thought it was best to stay home until Conrad is settled again. Calvin wants to talk about everyone’s problems when Beth feels it’s best to move on, and forget about the past and only think about the future. Their lack of communication to agree on things turns their marriage from good to bad and Beth ends up leaving Calvin and Conrad.
For this assignment, the movie “The Help” was chosen to review and analyze because it presents a story of fighting injustice through diverse ways. The three main characters of the movie are Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young white woman, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson, two colored maids. Throughout the story, we follow these three women as they are brought together to record colored maids’ stories about their experiences working for the white families of Jackson. The movie explores the social inequalities such as racism and segregation between African Americans and whites during the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.