Coming Home (1978)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Hal Ashby

Writers:

Nancy Dowd (story)
Robert C. Jones (writer)

Release Date:

15 February 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

A man who believed in war! A man who believed in nothing! And a woman who believed in both of them!

Plot:

A woman whose husband is fighting in Vietnam falls in love with another man who suffered a paralyzing combat injury there.

Plot Keywords:

Nude Body Double | Accidental Shooting | Paraplegic | Frigidity | Hospital

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 10 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Jane Fonda	...	Sally Hyde
Jon Voight	...	Luke Martin
Bruce Dern	...	Capt. Bob Hyde
Penelope Milford	...	Vi Munson
Robert Carradine	...	Bill Munson
Robert Ginty	...	Sgt. Dink Mobley
Mary Gregory	...	Martha Vickery
Kathleen Miller	...	Kathy Delise
Beeson Carroll	...	Capt. Earl Delise
Willie Tyler	...	Virgil
Louis Carello	...	Bozo (as Lou Carello)
Charles Cyphers	...	Pee Wee
Olivia Cole	...	Corrine
Tresa Hughes	...	Nurse Degroot
Bruce French	...	Dr. Lincoln

Runtime:

127 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway:16 | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Argentina:18 | Australia:MA | Finland:K-18 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Manhattan Beach, California, USA

Company:

Jerome Hellman Productions

Trivia:

Jon Voight's role of Luke Martin was loosely inspired by paralyzed Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, who was making inroads in Hollywood with his book "Born on the Fourth of July" at the time. Of course, Kovic's book and story was in 1989 put on the screen with Tom Cruise in the role of Kovic.

Quotes:

Luke Martin: You know, I spend 95% of the time at the hospital thinking of making love with you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "What I Like About You: Coming Home (#4.11)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

Ruby Tuesday

strong without forcing it

Without a single scene of combat footage, this story manages to convey, in realistically painful terms, how much Vietnam scarred the landscape of America. And this is only a fictional viewpoint. The true life accounts must be gut wrenching. No one returned from the war the same person. To suggest a film be made showing an unaffected soldier would be incredibley unbelievable. When attitudes change and characters grow from harsh realities, you can't help but be caught up in their struggle. People you would never expect to protest a US -involved conflict, or even question it, did so with Vietnam. The Jane Fonda Sally character is such a person. She begins the picture somewhat naive, easily trusting, and sort of tied to her straight laced military existence as the wife of an enlisted man. But then she sees an entirely different world when he's gone, and over months, falls for his total opposite, symbolizing how much she can never go back to the woman she was at the beginning. It's very subtle and deeply felt acting that can achieve this and both Fonda and Voight deserved their Oscars for their moving and expert performances. Bruce Dern is the hardest to sympathsize with on the surface, but you realize he's been scarred by what he's seen too, and what has happened to him in his absence, so his world becomes more bitter as everything he once knew shatters around him. The 3 experiences, his, Voight's and Fonda's merge together at the end, in a series of heartbreaking realizations, until you're left as broken as the country was after the war. You can't NOT be affected by what happened in Nam. It's impossible. And this film clearly shows why. It's the most personal and touching of Hollywood's Vietnam treatments. And certainly the deepest acted. Buy a copy and judge for yourself...