Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

A Case of You Blu-ray Movie Review

Writer's Block(head)

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 31, 2014

Having publicly declared himself a fan of Woody Allen, Justin Long must have known that the opening of A Case of You would remind viewers of the beginning of Allen's Manhattan, where a writer keeps rewriting the opening of a novel set in his hometown (Brooklyn, in the case of Long's film). The screenplay, which Long co-wrote with his brother, Christian, and actor Keir O'Donnell (Wedding Crashers), echoes another Allen classic, Annie Hall, in that it concerns a romance between a free-spirited young woman and a neurotic man who keeps tripping over himself when it comes to relationships.

With Long and his co-writers producing, the production assembled a first-rate ensemble (another Allen trademark), but neither the script nor the direction by former actress Kat Coiro (L!fe Happens) achieved anything like Woody Allen's balance (when he's at his best) between profound insight and great gags. Nor does the final product have an effective sense of pacing. Allen spent years doing standup before he began directing movies, and those interactions with a live audience gave him an impeccable sense of timing for using comedy to keep viewers off-balance, while serious themes slipped in by the back door. The failure of A Case of You to make much of an impression—starting with its bland title—may explain why it is being promoted with emphasis on the Facebook/online element of its plot, which is strictly a detail but makes the film sound more interesting than it is.

Sam (Long) is idling in a twenty-something funk. An aspiring writer, he can manage nothing better than hack work—which his oily publisher, Alan (Vince Vaughn), assures him does not make him a hack—turning out novelizations of second-rate fantasy films. He lacks inspiration for anything of his own. Sam's humiliation is complete when, at a signing for one of his books, he encounters a former fiancée, Sarah (Sienna Miller), now happily married to a columnist for the New York Times (i.e., a successful writer). To add insult to injury, Sarah is pregnant. His peers are moving into adulthood, while Sam can't even find a girlfriend.

Sam does have his eye on the pretty barista at his local coffee bar, whose name he'll eventually learn is Birdie (Evan Rachel Wood). Most of the time, though, he barely gets his voice past his teeth to place an order. He's crushed one morning to discover that Birdie is no longer there, replaced by an archly fey creature named Gerard, who says she's been fired. But you can look her up online, he says helpfully, providing her Facebook name.

It's Sam's roommate, Eliot (co-writer O'Donnell), who first suggests that Sam study Birdie's posted information to learn her interests and figure out how best to appeal to her. Soon Sam is studying the guitar, taking a gourmet cooking class, attending martial arts lessons and playing Joan Baez albums—all activities he wouldn't even have considered before. When Birdie posts that she's attending an evening of improv at a tiny theater, Sam buys a ticket. She recognizes him from the coffee bar; he hits all the right conversational bullet points; and they begin dating.

Things go beautifully, and Sam even breaks his writer's block, pouring out a stream-of-consciousness account of the relationship that his publisher can't read fast enough, although he likes it for different reasons than Sam believes. (A scene near the film's end when Sam sits down to discuss the manuscript with Alan and his partner, played by Peter Billingsley, is one of the best in the film.) But Sam grows increasingly restive as he feels that the man Birdie is dating isn't the real him. Besides, it's exhausting to continue playing this role he's invented to appeal to her. Did I mention the ballroom dancing?

The problem with this "predicament" is that it's ludicrously artificial. As noted by Ashley (Busy Philipps), the girlfriend of Sam's roommate, Eliot, a relationship involves participating in your partner's interests. Sam just got a head start on learning Birdie's interests by using Facebook. Before the internet, people could do the same thing by asking friends and acquaintances of the objects of their affection. And yes, learning new things consumes your energy. Involvement with other people always does. Long and his co-writers skirt around an interesting theme of the risks of connection vs. the comfort of self-involvement—the same issue arises between Eliot and Ashley, when they fight over his penchant for masturbating to pictures of celebrities—but the script never confronts it directly.

Evan Rachel Wood brings warmth and energy to the screen, but she's hobbled by a part that is more plot function than character. Annie Hall was flighty, but she was a specific person, and it was clear why she and Alvy Singer kept having conflicts. Birdie, by contrast, turns out to be a generic pretty girl with a good heart who has just been waiting for Mr. Right.

A Case of You Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot with the Arri Alexa by director Coiro's usual cinematographer, Doug Chamberlain (L!fe Happens), A Case of You arrives from IFC on a capable 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray that has presumably been sourced from digital files. The Alexa's customary blend of detailed capture and film-like smoothness are readily observable, but the overall look of the film is generally bland, because the color palette seems to have been selected for dullness and uniformity in most scenes. This is certainly true in portions of the film dealing with Sam's life, but even scenes with Birdie that one would expect to deliver more vivid imagery (e.g., the ballroom dancing classes or a visit to an exhibit of Andrew Wyeth paintings or a private tour of a collection of movie memorabilia) do not provide a substantially more vibrant image. Since post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, where any or all of the frame could have been color-corrected to accentuate one or more colors, one must assume that this was a deliberate artistic choice.

Black levels are good, and noise, interference or digital artifacting were nowhere to be seen. The average bitrate of 24.98 Mbps is more than sufficient for a digitally originated 92-minute film without major action. A Case of You won't pop off your screen, but it appears to be an accurate presentation.

A Case of You Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's 5.1 mix is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA, and it's a straightforward affair with clear dialogue, solid dynamic range and nothing special going on in the surrounds. The score by Mateo Messina (Juno and Best Man Down, which also starred Justin Long) reflects the contemporary indie sensibility to which the film clearly aspires, but perhaps it should have tried for something more traditional in the writing and direction.

(A PCM 2.0 track is also included.)

A Case of You Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:28): Brief interviews with Long, Wood and O'Donnell intercut with scenes from the trailer.



• Trailer (1080p; 2.39:1; 2:14). There must be deleted scenes, because some footage in the trailer doesn't appear in the film.



• Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers for A Perfect Man, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, The Canyons and Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?. These can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

A Case of You Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are glimpses throughout A Case of You of the film it could have been. Some of the montages (for example, where Sam is learning his various new skills) recall similar passages in Woody Allen's earlier films, as do some of the smaller character moments, such as Brendan Fraser's appearance as Birdie's musician ex-boyfriend. But the film lingers over these moments for too long, as if to make up for the lack of substance in the central relationship. Long and his co-writers are to be commended for aspiring to write their own material, but it's harder than it looks. Strictly a rental.