Coming Home Review

Sally Hyde (Fonda)'s husband is fighting in Vietnam, and she is working at a veteran's hospital. There, she finds herself falling in love with a wheelchair-bound veteran (Voight)

by Alan Morrison |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1978

Running Time:

0 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

Coming Home

Despite, in time, being overshadowed by The Deer Hunter, back at the 1979 Oscars it was Coming Home's Jon Voight who took Best Actor from beneath Robert De Niro's nose (with Jane Fonda winning that year's Best Actress).

There's a strong erotic chemistry between the leads, as wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet Voight (his career best) and politically and sexually naive army wife Fonda begin an affair while her husband (Bruce Dern) is on a tour of duty. Hal Ashby's critique of America's abandonment of the psychologically and physically wounded carefully sets itself up as anti-war, not anti-soldier – which is all the more potent in a country that now censors photos of its battlefield coffins.

Career best-standard performances from both leads and a strong erotic thread put this a cut above other Vietnam 'issue' movies.
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