NEXT TO NORMAL and the film ORDINARY PEOPLE....

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 8:52pm

*Spoilers*

I just saw ORDINARY PEOPLE for the first time today. Is it just me, or is the plot of NEXT TO NORMAL oddly similar to ORDINARY PEOPLE'S plot? Both pieces revolve around a family dealing with the loss of a son. They both also have a character who attempts suicide and gets ECT, a therapist, and both even end with the mother "leaving for a while" as the existing child and father connect, cry, and hug.
I don't recall seeing this discussed while N2N was playing on Broadway.

Is this pure coincidence?
Updated On: 11/14/11 at 08:52 PM

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 8:58pm

I feel the same way. I don't think I ever heard anyone else talk about it. I always wanted a musical Ordinary People musical, so I was thrilled with the show.

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:02pm

There are definite similarities, but ORDINARY PEOPLE is interested in how the family dynamic changed after the tragic events, whereas N2N is focused on Diana and how she's lived with Gabe's death for twenty years. I think OP is more concerned with how the entire family dealt with Buck's death and Conrad's suicide attempt, while N2N is really primarily Diana's story until well into the second act, and even then, most of Dan and Natalie's stories are somewhat reflected through Diana's experience. But I really don't think that Yorkey and Kitt were borrowing from either the film or the novel any more than from any of the many works of literature, theatre, and film on this subject that existed before N2N.

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:06pm

I agree, the focus of each piece is quite different. But I was just surprised to see some VERY specific similarities, including an attempted suicide leading to ECT (though two different characters and in OP, it happens "before the start of the film") and the mother packing a bag and leaving for "a while." It was just an observation.

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:11pm

I haven't seen the movie or read the book in a while; I didn't remember that there were such glaring similarities. Might be time for me to rewatch. Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton were amazing.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:11pm

Yep. It's certainly not a rip-off, but there's a lot of fun similarities between the two.

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:16pm

Yup, I didn't mean to imply that N2N blatantly ripped off OP. But I do wonder if the creators were inspired by it.

I absolutely loved the performances in OP. It was great to see Mary Tyler Moore play a juicy film role like that. Hutton certainly deserved an Oscar for his performance.
Updated On: 11/14/11 at 09:16 PM

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:19pm

Mary Tyler Moore was phenomenal and Timothy Hutton and Donald Sutherland will break your heart. It's an American classic! A beautiful and moving little movie!

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:23pm

I'm glad to see such positive talk of ORDINARY PEOPLE here. Despite the Oscars, it was dismissed by a lot of New Yorkers I knew who thought anything having to do with Midwestern WASPs must be trivial.

One big difference between the two pieces results from the huge changes in psychiatry over the past 40 years. Obviously psychiatric meds have been around for a long time, but nowadays the profession is far less convinced that major problems can be cured by "talk therapy".

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:33pm

As much as I enjoy Sissy Spacek in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, the fact that MTM has no Oscar for that performance is criminal. And was Sutherland even nominated?

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 10:46pm

From what I can tell, the change doesn't have to do with what psychiatrists believe is more efficacious--medication is just where the money is. Therapy was taken over by psychologists (and now Masters level providers) and it's far more lucrative to do 15 min med checks where you can see more clients throughout the day.

[mallardo]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 1:49pm

Brian Yorkey is certainly of an age to have seen and been influenced by Ordinary People - which was adapted from a best selling novel. The similarities are definitely there.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 2:18pm

I don't see it. Ordinary People is about a mother who can not love her child, a father who needs more than anything to believe that she can, so that he can have a real family, but has to ultimately come to terms with her inability to do so, and the family's inability to go on. That inability is not at all, as in NTN, due to the mother's psychosis, but to her inability to love her surviving son.

Next to Normal is about a bipolar woman trying to maintain her equilibrium in a family with a great deal of love and humor. While Natalie may feel a certain degree of neglect, there is never any question that Diana is a loving mother to both her dead and surviving child and that she is trying to do the best she can for her family. Diana has to leave in the end because she feels she has tried everything she can to cope within her marriage and family life and it is not working for her or for those she loves.

Both are nuclear family dramas with tragic elements. Both involve psychiatry, although in extremely different ways all around: as to the member of the family in treatment, the form of treatment, the diagnosis and prognosis, and, most importantly, the centrality of mental health in the story being told. Both involve the loss of a loved son and the difficulty in coping with that. But they are very different stories about very different families with very different conflicts.

As to Spacek versus Moore - is there a better example than this of how ridiculous awards are when two performances as marvelous are pitted against each other?

However, that Sutherland's performance was not even nominated is an atrocity. He was eloquent, heartbreaking, unforgettable. The performance of a very illustrious career.
Updated On: 11/15/11 at 02:18 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 4:28pm

This is all just another way of saying that NEXT TO NORMAL is a rather derivative play, with all too familiar dysfunctional family elements taken from plenty of different sources.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 5:00pm

AC, IMDB says Sutherland was nominated for a Golden Globe, but not an Oscar.

As for the comparison between N2N and OP, many works have a dead child as the compelling secret of the exposition. We might as well ask whether N2N was influenced by Robert Frost's "Home Burial".

sporkgoddess, yes, that's the opposing point of view, that prescribing meds is more lucrative for doctors as well as pharmaceutical companies. But even psychologists who conduct "talk therapy" also refer patients to MDs for prescription purposes (and that does nothing to put more money in the psychologist's pocket). There has been a lot of research about the brain and how it works conducted since the 1970s.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 5:02pm

I think an argument can be made that Mary Tyler Moore's role was actually supporting...putting her in contention with eventual winner Mary Steenburgen (whom I love). I think she would have picked up the award had she been put in that category.

Of course, I think Timothy Hutton should have been considered Best Actor...it's his movie. In every way, shape and form. And as much as I loved Hirsch in the movie, I do think Sutherland's work should have gotten the nod. What a devastating portrait.

I think Ordinary People (a beautiful, heartbreaking film) is only very superficially similar to Next to Normal (a musical with some flaws, but which ultimately broke my heart).

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 5:18pm

I'm sure you're right, SonofRobbieJ, using whatever method you are using (screen time, maybe?) but Moore so dominated that film in my mind, it would have been hard to understand her placement as Supporting Actress.

I agree with you about Hutton, Sutherland and Hirsh, but hasn't the Academy long tended to put children in the supporting category? Anna Paquin comes to mind.

(BTW, having seen both OP and COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER recently on cable TV and despite my posting elsewhere that Spacek doesn't sing as well as I had rememered her singing, I can't get too upset about Spacek's Oscar. Very different roles, but both Spacek and Moore were terrific. And Spacek is in every scene of her film.)

Updated On: 11/15/11 at 05:18 PM

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 6:30pm

Edit: Nevermind, I don't want to drag this thread off-topic.

Updated On: 11/15/11 at 06:30 PM