Coming Home - 1978

This movie was nominated for 8 Academy Awards and took home 3- including best actor (John Voight) and best actress (Jane Fonda). It has been on my list to watch for some time. I am too young to really understand what this Country went through with the Vietnam War. I liked looking at the Vietnam monument in D.C. last fall, but really there is no emotion for me like there would be for someone my parent’s age. This movie is well done on many levels. Yes it says the F word way too many times, and the graphic nudity during one love scene deserves a NC-17 rating rather than an R rating- I ended up fast forwarding it - but it was bad. Fonda is married to Bruce Dern and life is great. He is in the Marines and they live on base. He is then sent to Vietnam. Life changes for Fonda. She is on her own and her husband doesn't want her to work, so she picks up a volunteer job at a VA hospital and starts meeting all the quacks - soldiers coming home from Nam. They are really screwed up in the head as well as learning how to deal with their physical disabilities. She takes to one of them- a paraplegic played by Voight. They bond and fall in love somewhat. Fonda reserves her heart for her husband but what she doesn't realize is that he is about to return from Nam as messed up as any other solider. He ends up taking his own life. The movie is really about Fonda and how she realizes that these men need help. It was a statement movie and it delivers a message to the Country that the effects of Vietnam were not worth anything that we accomplished, and really that has always been debatable on whether or not we did do anything good over there. This movie deserves its accolades. I wish it would have been made at a PG level because I would like to show it to my kids. The director did a fantastic job portraying the struggles of life after war- wheelchairs, friendships, medication, etc. A powerful movie that moved me. Had it been toned down I little I could go 4.5 stars, but for all the cussing and nudity I have to go 3.5 stars.