Introduction
Vietnam was a hot topic for Hollywood in 1978 when the movie Coming Home was made in showing the plight of wounded soldiers who were making efforts to adjust with life back in the USA, many of who were unable to lead a normal physical life, and more importantly unable to reconcile themselves to the deep hurt and emotional scars left due to mental problems that were more painful than their physical ailments. Jane Fonda does a beautiful job in her role as a woman named Sally who was influenced immensely by feeling the pain and suffering of soldiers who returned to find the ignorant attitude of the government and media in addressing their physical and emotional woes. The film has targeted the widest possible audience in firstly condemning the Vietnam War, secondly in being a love story and thirdly in recording the polarization Vietnam prompted in the people in regard to coming to political conclusions. Evidently the movie is seen to have addressed a lot of issues, and that too without having shown any war scenes.
Analysis
Jane Fonda plays the major role of Sally who is perhaps the main mover of the film. Others are Bruce as Sally’s husband, a Marine captain who is sent to Vietnam to fight the war and returns mentally disturbed, and Jon Voight, playing the role of Luke Martin, who is portrayed as a paraplegic vet and comes romantically very close to Sally, his old school mate. Sally had volunteered to offer her services in a hospital for war veterans, in view of her loneliness after her husband too went to the war, where she met her old class mate Luke and comes very close to him in sharing the travails of the war experiences. It develops into a romantic interlude which sees Sally having her outlook transform into seeing the government as misusing the soldiers and not caring for them.
Coming Home is in fact more of an intimate portrayal that has not been experienced any other war film, although the graphic details of the effects of war are not portrayed. It is the story of how two persons learn to cope with the harsh realities of the country, communities and the world that we live in. The bigger realization is that love for one’s country and its criticism are not exclusive to each other. The movie is indeed, also a very touching love story in its own way. The film is also a realistic depiction about the insight of the war from the veteran’s point of view and the pain associated with it. While the film addresses the emotional chaos brought about by the Vietnam War, it uses the war stories very movingly to impact the human mind into understanding the revelations made by the three sided love story about one woman who loves two Vietnam veterans, one of them being her husband and the other her former class mate. The movie raises the question about what Jane should do, whether she should stay with her husband, who has become a neurotic mess due to the war and who was neither much attached to her before, or she should go by her true love for her former class mate, Luke who is although paralyzed now, but had become physically and emotionally very close to her, and who is in mental compatibility with her.