Coming Home, 1978.
Directed by Hal Ashby.
Starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, and Bruce Dern.
SYNOPSIS:
Kino Lorber has reissued Hal Ashby’s classic Coming Home on Blu-ray. The film hasn’t been restored, and the extras are the same as before, but this is still a worthwhile pick-up if you’re a fan and have been meaning to add this one to your library.
I can’t imagine that Hollywood will ever stop reminding us that war is hell, along with the fact that some wars are more hellish than others, when considering what the soldiers must go through when returning home.
Case in point, of course: the Vietnam War. There’s no shortage of classics like Apocalypse Now and Platoon to show us how awful the conflict was in that country, but 1978’s Coming Home shifts the focus to the home front.
In fact, the only time the story leaves the United States is when the main character, Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda), travels to Hong Kong to see her husband Bob (Bruce Dean) while he’s on R&R. While Sally starts the film as a conservative, prim and proper military wife, her chance encounter with Luke Martin (Jon Voight) at the VA hospital where she’s a volunteer begins to change her perspective.
Like many of the other men at the hospital, Luke has been broken by his experiences in Vietnam and the injury that left him lying on a hospital gurney, forced to use a pair of canes to navigate the hallways. His plight connects with a sense of justice residing within Sally, and she soon befriends him.
When his rehabilitation enables him to use a wheelchair, she invites him to her home for dinner, where the two begin to fall in love. Sally tries to use her position as a hospital volunteer to advocate for Luke and the other men through her network of military wives, but they rebuff her.
She also befriends Vi (Penelope Milford), whose boyfriend has been sent to Vietnam with Bob, and the two begin spending more time with each other and with Luke. Sally begins to shed her previously uptight ways, but when Luke chains himself to the gate of a military recruiting station in protest of the war, the FBI takes an interest in him and documents his affair with Sally. Thus the story builds tension as Bob’s return from Vietnam looms over both of them, and Sally must decide how she will resolve the love triangle she has found herself in.
Coming Home was shot by director Hal Ashby in a no-frills style that lets the viewer directly confront, and sit with, the emotions he stirs up. For example, he opens the film with a scene of various men at the VA hospital as they grapple with the question of loyalty to one’s country versus whether the conflict made sense, as many people did back then.
Like William Wyler’s classic The Best Years of Our Lives, which took a similar tactic with GIs returning from World War II (widely seen as a “good war,” of course), Coming Home focuses on whether enduring the horrors of war is worth the price paid in its participants’ lives. And like that film, and other well-told stories, this one simply lets the viewer decide how they really feel.
I don’t own any previous home video editions of this film, but my understanding is that this is a reissue of the Blu-ray Kino Lorber released nearly a decade ago. There’s no indication that the print has been restored, judging by the scratches and other imperfections that pop up here and there, but the video quality should be fine for the average viewer.
Kino Lorber also didn’t commission any new bonus features for this disc, but what’s included forms a worthwhile complement to the film. The extras start with a commentary track featuring Voight, Dern, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Voight and Wexler were recorded together and Dern’s thoughts were weaved in separately, focusing mostly on when his character is onscreen, but overall it’s a track full of worthwhile observations and anecdotes.
Since Ashby died in 1988, he wasn’t around to contribute to extra features found on discs of his films, unfortunately, but Voight, Dern, and Wexler are joined by Norman Jewison for a 15-minute reflection on his career in Man Out of Time. Ashby is one of those filmmakers who’s sometimes an also-ran when people compile lists of great 1970s directors, but he certainly deserves a spot on those lists.
Finally, there’s a 25-minute making-of, Coming Back Home, in which Voight, Dern, and Wexler return to look back on how the film came to be, from its earliest days to its release and beyond, which included eight Oscar nominations, three of which were wins.
The theatrical trailer rounds out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
Originally published February 2, 2024. Updated April 22, 2024.
