Verdict
Summary
Director Hal Ashby’s Coming Home feels pretty realistic from top to bottom, attempting to make a film that almost resembles a documentary in its stripped down approach to screenwriting, drama, and acting.
Plot:
A married nurse at a VA hospital falls in love with a handicapped Vietnam vet at the height of the Vietnam War.
Review:
The Vietnam War is in full swing in the late ’60s, and a soldier is shipped home after becoming a paraplegic. The soldier is Luke Martin (Jon Voight in a role that won him the Oscar for best actor), and his wounds run much deeper than those that put him in a wheelchair. He is disillusioned and angry at the pointlessness of the war and when he meets an attractive nurse named Sally (Jane Fonda, who also won the Oscar for best actress) his life takes an unexpected turn when he finds that she’s attracted to him. Married to a Captain named Bob (Bruce Dern), an honorable man who only seeks from the war the chance to be a hero, Sally begins a sensitive affair with Luke while her husband is in Vietnam. When Bob returns months later, he very quickly realizes that Sally has been cheating on him in his absence, which throws him for a loop. Already deeply conflicted about the atrocities he witnessed and partook in, Bob’s mental state shatters, but Luke might be the only person who can truly understand his suffering.
Director Hal Ashby’s Coming Home feels pretty realistic from top to bottom, attempting to make a film that almost resembles a documentary in its stripped down approach to screenwriting, drama, and acting. While trying not to be sensational, it ends up being exactly that: Sensational with strong performances, really up close and personal emotions, and a complete lack of a score, replaced by constant songs of the era that pepper the film, sometimes a little too obviously. The movie is very gritty, raw, foul, and sexually frank, but it’s certainly an indelible piece of cinema, worthy of its reputation.
Kino Lorber recently reissued Coming Home on Blu-ray, and it comes with an audio commentary by Voight, Dern, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler, as well as two bonus features, and the trailer. The high definition transfer is sharp and looks and sounds excellent. This edition comes with a slipcover.
