The War at Home

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

In the 1970s, there were many families similar to the Colliers, grappling with Vietnam, patriotism and the generation gap. The War at Home resurrects those troubled times with a perspicacity that is bound to strike some chords and rekindle some resentment. When Jeremy Collier (Estevez) returns from Vietnam to his Texas home, haunted by the killing fields, he finds his girlfriend living with another man. He takes refuge in his bedroom, brooding and listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash. He blames his father (Sheen) for a lot of his problems. The elder Collier, a conservative veteran, refused to fund Jeremy's escape to Canada, and his mother (Bates) is a neat-freak devout Baptist. Jeremy's angst erupts on Thanksgiving into an all-out screaming, gun-waving family war. An interesting family study, especially with Estevez directing his father, Sheen, and appearing in the film as his son.