Coming Home (1978 film)

Coming Home is a 1978 drama film directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern. The screenplay by Waldo Salt and Robert C. Jones was from a story by Nancy Dowd. The plot follows the drama between a young woman, her Marine husband and the paralyzed Vietnam War veteran she meets while her husband is overseas. Fonda and Voight won Academy Awards for their performances.

At the hospital, Sally meets Luke Martin Jon Voight, a former high school classmate. Like his friend Billy Robert Carradine, Luke had gone to Vietnam but come back wounded. He is recuperating at the hospital from the injuries he sustained in the Vietnam War and which left him a paraplegic. Filled with pain, anger, and frustration, Luke is now opposed to the war. Luke at first is a bitter young man, but as he is increasingly thrown into contact with Sally, a relationship starts to develop. Eventually, Luke is released from the hospital, and, newly mobile with his own wheelchair, begins to rebuild his life. His relationship with Sally deepens. She is also transformed by him and her outlook on life starts to change. They have happy times, play at the beach, and the two fall in love. Meanwhile Billy, traumatized by his experiences at war, commits suicide by injecting air into his veins. After Billys suicide, Luke has only one obsession do anything to stop sending young men off to war.Sally and Luke eventually make love, confronting his handicap. It is the first time Sally has had an orgasm. However, she remains loyal to her husband, and both she and Luke know their relationship will have to end when her husband returns home. Bob does return, too soon, claiming he accidentally wounded himself in the leg. He is also suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from what he has seen in combat. Bob then discovers Sallys affair from Army Intelligence and both Sally and Luke agree that Sally should try to patch things up with Bob. Bob loses control menacingly confronting the lovers with a loaded rifle, but ultimately turns away. The film ends with Luke speaking to young men about his experience in Vietnam, intercut with Bob placing his neatly folded Marines dress uniform on the beach, and swimming out into the ocean in the nude the reasons for which are unclear, whether to kill himself, or as a symbolic act of cleansing. As Sally enters a supermarket at the end, the two doo

Source: Wikipedia