Most critics admire Coming Home, and the praise lands first on the actors. Jon Voight’s paralysed veteran and Jane Fonda’s army wife are singled out almost everywhere, with several reviews noting how frankly the film treats her sexuality for its period, and Collider argues that Bruce Dern’s returning soldier is the performance that lingers. Hal Ashby is credited with a stance that is against the war without being against the soldiers, and the documentary-style look and period detail are widely noted.
The reservations cluster on the love triangle. Several reviews feel the film opens with something close to reportage about wounded men and then settles into a conventional romance. The spread is wide, and both negative notices date from the film’s first release: The New York Times finds its intentions unrealised, and The New Yorker calls it sloppy and doctrinaire. Later critics are consistently warmer, and Film Comment treats the melodrama as the point rather than a fault.