Most critics like it, and the praise falls in two places. The first is the acting: Mary Tyler Moore’s tightly wound mother is singled out again and again, with Timothy Hutton’s damaged son and Donald Sutherland’s bewildered father close behind. The second is Redford, whose first film as director is repeatedly called assured and understated, letting the performances carry the weight. Several reviews add that the family stays ordinary without being patronised, and that the film is funnier than its reputation suggests.
The reservations cluster around depth. The New Yorker finds an earnest, academic exercise in catharsis that never reaches past its acting effects, and Time Out sees a tasteful psychodrama that amounts to an elegant advert for therapy. Later reappraisals, including Radio Times, think the handling of the family’s buried tensions now looks pat. The spread is wide, from full marks to the low fifties, though nobody dismisses it outright.