Blu-ray Movie Reviews

While recovering under the watchful eye of his parents, Leonard meets two women in quick succession: Michelle, a mysterious and beautiful neighbor who is exotic and out-of-place in Leonard's staid world, and Sandra, the lovely and caring daughter of a businessman who is buying out his family's dry-cleaning business. Leonard becomes deeply infatuated by Michelle, who seems poised to fall for him, but is having a self-destructive affair with a married man. At the same time, mounting pressure from his family pushes him towards committing to Sandra. Leonard is forced to make an impossible decision - between the impetuousness of desire and the comfort of love - or risk falling back into the darkness that nearly killed him.

An interesting tale of love and the drama that always plays out around it. This is supposedly the last film we’ll see Phoenix in and he delivers a great performance here. Paltrow is also strong in an unusually weaker character role as a woman involved in an affair with a married man. The story doesn’t have quite the twists I was hoping for, but the strong cast and production keep things interesting.

Magnolia delivers a strong HD showing for this beautifully filmed movie. Contrast levels are strong and fine detail is excellent throughout. I did notice some minor banding early on in the film, but it wasn’t much of a distraction. Depth of image is quite good throughout and dimensionality is better than average. Colors have a somewhat muted look with the film bouncing back and forth between a cool bluish tint and a warmer red.

The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio and given the genre you don’t get much here aside from the film’s subtle scoring. But there are a few moments when the mix opens up, particularly a short club scene with outstanding presence and low end extension. Dialogue is always clean and very nicely balanced within the mix and the soundtrack does have a nice spatial quality.

Extras include a director’s commentary along with some behind the scenes footage and interviews. Some deleted scenes and a photo gallery are also included.

This is a well crafted human drama that offers some great performances. The Blu-ray presentation is strong but the film doesn’t have a lot of replay value. Fans of the genre should consider a rental though.