Like Normal People

My girlfriend and i watched this movie for the first time the other day and actually laughed at the acting in it. I have never seen such bad acting, i know this was never made to be a Hollywood blockbuster but "Waa-Jah" was just a joke. How did they ever get the budget to make this film? After getting over the initial laughter of the acting we realised that the way the actors were playing these characters was actually quite insulting. There is a very fine line when playing someone with any kind of disability, it is either very good i.e Sean Penn in "I am Sam", or what we have here in this movie which amounts to playing the character more like a playground taunt rather than with any thought or feeling.

I enjoy high camp and this is the holy grail of T.V. camp. While this was made to be sensitive tale of two people in love in a time when love for them was not allowed, it is nothing more than a send up of people with disabilities. I laughed out loud when this thing first aired. In fact everyone I knew laughed out loud. The only film I can think of that has more unintentional funny dialog is the English dubbed version of Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster. The enjoyable aspect is you get to see some great location shots in Los Angeles. When was the last time you saw Love's Ribs on Pico? (BTW that was a real lazy location FOX! What was it... Two blocks from the front gate?) There is nothing kind or touching in this film. A contemporary viewer would would laugh non-stop until the bitter predictable preachy end. This is dark comedy at its finest. Come on Zalman King playing someone who cares? No way! It gets a ten in my book for being a constant source of jokes.

Cassidy and Purl give credible, moving performances as a slightly retarded young couple who fall in love and want to get married--to be "like normal people". Unfortunately, their parents and their friends don't believe they have the ability to do so. Thus the story moves along their struggles to overcome a system which seeks to suppress those "outside the norm"; in a more profound sense, it is a realistic, gritty look at what obstacles true love can overcome. An extremely difficult, challenging role for each to play effectively; but how magnificently they rose to that challenge. It is certainly worth the time to view this film--like rare flowers, the fragrance remains long after the blossoms are gone.

I remember clearly seeing this film on Friday, April 13, 1979. I was trying to finish up the spring semester at college, and originally turned on the TV as background sound. But then it got and held my attention and really sucked me into the storyline and this young couple's fight to be "like normal people". This movie is apparently based on a true story of a mentally challenged couple that fought and won the right to marry. There was a movie with a similar story line that had aired just a few weeks before starring Richard Thomas and Julie Kavner.

The film shows the life of mentally challenged Roger Meyers (Shaun Cassidy) from his infancy up to the point that he marries Virginia (Linda Purl). It shows how the entire family is effected by Roger's handicap and the depression he is thrown into after being accused by a local cop for sending an obscenity-laced letter to a teenage girl, all because Roger sent her a valentine plus the fact that the mentally disabled were often considered sex fiends in those days. It turns out that a "normal" boy from school actually sent the letter.

Roger's mood improves when his parents decide to send him to an institution that believes in normalizing the mentally challenged, not warehousing them. In particular his mood improves because he meets Virginia. Their mutual crush is considered somewhat endearing until it turns to love and they talk of marriage.

What is the worst of the 70's I was talking about? Mainly it has to do with the attitude towards the mentally challenged and sex - that people believed that they are either asexual or over-sexed with no middle ground and that regardless of the cause of the retardation, they must not be allowed to reproduce. (Roger and Virginia did not have congenital retardation).

What was the best of the 70's that I saw here? That middle class people such as Roger's family could effectively deal with Roger and his needs without going broke, that the state actually offered some meaningful financial help to such families back then, and that in 1979 if Roger and Virginia had been of average IQ that they would have been able to marry and live modestly with modest jobs - not shackled with six figures of student debt and a mandatory college education in order to have that same modest lifestyle today.

Ok, I haven't watched the movie yet; however, I do know Roger and his wife Virginia. They are my neighbors and the nicest people! Roger stopped by my house yesterday to let me know he and Virginia were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary!