Coming Home

A film set in California in 1968. Bob is a captain and volunteers for Vietnam. His wife Sally sees him off and stays behind as an officer's wife. To fill her time Sally starts volunteering at a veterans' hospital. She meets Luke there. They were at the same school; he is now in a wheelchair, angry, and shouting at everyone in the corridor. From there the film is about the two of them coming together. The hospital, a flat, the shoreline and a relationship. Luke changes. He directs his anger somewhere; he chains himself outside a recruiting office and starts speaking at schools. Sally changes too. She cuts her hair, buys a car, and starts making her own decisions. Then Bob comes back. What the narrative is interested in is not war but return: the film shows no scene at the front; what it describes is entirely what the ones who came back will do. Bob's line is the hardest. He cannot explain, he sees that his wife has changed, and he cannot describe what happened to him. The music is chosen from the songs of the period and plays almost throughout; the film uses it as history rather than background. There are real veterans in the hospital scenes. The film won three Academy Awards: Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern and Penelope Milford are in the cast. Hal Ashby directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes American cinema of the 1970s and postwar drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a clear political position; the film tries to prove all three characters right and the ending is unresolved.