This is a great movie, period! My #1 all-time favorite. One has to UNDERSTAND the story to follow along.This is a great movie for young people. I cannot fathom some of the junk rated above this movie. This is a classic theme of guilt, and the devastation it wreaks upon an otherwise ordinary family. It is the tale of a mis-fit young man (Timothy Hutton) being eaten away with guilt when, during a summer sail on the lake, a storm arises and his handsome, athletic, and supposedly stronger older brother drowns. He blames himself for being unable to save his brother, and his mother, (a great Mary Tyler Moore performance) who idolized his brother, practically comes out and says she would rather the other brother had survived. This intensifies the guilt, and he attempts suicide to try to make the pain go away.His father (another superb performance by Donald Sutherland) is the typical executive today who in his rush to make a living, and keep up with the Joneses, is basically clueless at the turmoil his son is going through, and it takes a suicide attempt by his son to get his attention. Judd Hirsch also gives a capital performance as Hutton's psychiatrist. In the end, he sees the mother's coldness as a danger to their son, and comes to the realization that his love for her is wanning because she is no longer that warm, cheerful girl he married so long ago, and her seemingly aversion to the surviving son is further destroying that love. The father and son finally find a love deep in their hearts they never knew existed, but the mother still unable to let go, and in her grief, and harding heart, leaves. The final scene fading into Marvin Hamlisch's rendition of Pachabel's Canon in 'D' is one of the most poigant endings in cinema.