Few film directors were so quintessentially New Hollywood as Hal Ashby. His filmography, at least its good parts, coincided with the period while Ashby himself was, unlike all other New Hollywood directors, uncompromisingly anti-establishment, which reflected both in his counterculture lifestyle and left-wing politics. The latter played an important part in Coming Home, a 1978 drama remembered nowadays as one of the most popular and most important films made about the Vietnam War.
The plot begins in 1968 Southern California. While the increasingly bloody and unpopular war begins to tear American society apart, Captain Bob Hyde (played by Bruce Dern), ambitious US Marine officer, still believes in the official line and enthusiastically goes to fight in Vietnam. His wife Sally Bender (played by Jane Fonda) shares traditional values and supports his decision, but when he departs, she finds herself truly alone for the first time in her life. She decides to volunteer at a veterans hospital, and among many young men whose bodies and souls were permanently maimed during their service in Vietnam, she finds Luke Martin (played by Jon Voight), paraplegic veteran who also happens to be her old school acquaintance. Two of them become friends and, after a while, their relationship becomes romantic and even sexual, despite Luke's condition. This is further complicated by Luke's anti-war activism, as well as Bob who, deeply affected by the horrors of the war, returns home as a shadow of a man he used to be.
Made three years after the fall of Saigon, in a time when Hollywood producers finally felt comfortable coming to grips with the Vietnam fiasco, Coming Home reflects prevailing attitudes and wears its anti-war stance on its sleeve. This shouldn't be too surprising, because the film originated as the idea of Jane Fonda, known for her passionate opposition to the war and (in)famous publicity stunt in Hanoi. She was convinced that the most realistic and practical way to portray the war was an indirect approach through depicting its psychological aftermath at the home front. The film was also inspired by Fonda's friendship with fellow anti-war activist and paraplegic veteran Ron Kovic, who served as a model for Luke's character, and whose life was later depicted in the 1989 biopic Born on the Fourth of July. Fonda had good fortune that almost anyone in her project – Ashby, Voight, screenwriters Waldo Salt and Robert C. Jones – shared her views on the war. Those views apparently matched those among the audience, which resulted in very good box-office results and spectacular and widely-publicised race for "Oscars" with another Vietnam War film The Deer Hunter.
Coming Home lost that race but it won a consolation prize in the form of "Oscars" for Best Actor and Best Actress. For Jane Fonda that was her second such award and it could be said that it was deserved. She convincingly presented the transformation of a former cheerleader and obedient wife into strong, independent women. Jon Voight won his "Oscar" for a truly great performance in which he plays a character who begins as a pathetic wreck but gradually finds dignity and purpose and, in the process, wins the hearts of his partner and the audience. His speech to the students at the end of the film, which was, in good New Hollywood tradition, ad-libbed, is one of the most memorable of the era. For many audiences, this film became memorable for its sex scene, which, despite being very explicit (and later serving as a euphemism for certain sexual activity), represents one of the most romantic moments of New Hollywood.
This film is incredibly well-acted, but great acting comes together with certain flaws. The most obvious is inconsistency in approach. Ashby tries to be as realistic as possible, like in the opening scenes which feature real-life disabled veterans honestly discussing war with various opinions about it. This is, however, compromised by setting the film in sunny Southern California, with protagonists who belong to the middle class and can afford to buy and drive sports cars – very unlike The Deer Hunter which featured blue-collar characters in bleak Pennsylvania. Ashby also has some problems with pacing and the film would have been more effective without subplots involving Sally's bohemian friend (played by Penelope Milford) and her mentally disturbed brother (played by Robert Carradine). The most annoying is the use of the most popular late 1960s pop and rock songs in almost any scene of the film. Technique, which was supposed to give period "feel" to the film, was often copied in other, much inferior films, and here it doesn't work and instead reminds the audience that they are watching a film produced with someone who could pay hefty royalties. Despite that, Coming Home is a film that deserves recommendation, perhaps even more now, when the new generations should be reminded what the real price of a war really is.
RATING: 7/10 (++)
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