Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie Review

Is this Aussie film a fortunate coincidence or a series of ill-fated accidents?

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater August 2, 2010

Last week, we reviewed the lackluster Australian film Beautiful, which unsuccessfully apes Blue Velvet and American Beauty in an attempt to scratch the seedy underbelly of suburbia. This seems to be a recently common theme in Aussie cinema. Accidents Happen, written by choreographer Brian Carbee and directed by first-timer Andrew Lancaster, is yet another film from down under that tries to parse the problems of the ‘burbs, but this one draws some inspiration from the coincidence/fate dichotomy of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia. As the title implies, accidents do happen here, and they’re mostly of the stranger-than-fiction variety. The film struggles to establish a tone. You could call it a coming-of-age tragi-comedy set in the suburbs of a nostalgic imagination, but the disparate elements—especially the rift between comedy and tragedy— never congeal like they should. Worse is the way the film hijacks its own sense of ironic detachment and steers instead toward weepy melodrama in the final act.

Accidents happen...

For about the first ten minutes of the film we’re subjected to a voiceover that falls somewhere between Kevin Spacey’s opening monologue in American Beauty and an episode of The Wonder Years gone horribly wrong. Little Billy Conway is playing in his front yard when a next- door neighbor, Mr. Smolensky, accidentally sets himself on fire while trying to light a barbeque. (“Common sense is never enough to keep you safe,” says the narrator, “because the world is, quite simply, dangerous.”) This is the first accident to happen near Billy, who seems to be a tragedy magnet.

Later, returning home from a drive-in movie, his family gets in a car accident that kills Billy’s sister and renders his older brother Eugene catatonic. (“Very bad accidents,” the narrator says, smarmily, “have a charming way of not seeming real.” Yes, charming.) From here the film jumps forward eight years. The Conway family is a wreck. Billy (Harrison Gilbertson) copes in silence while his other teenaged brother, Larry (Harry Cook), turns to hard drink. Ray (Joel Tobeck), their father, has run out on them, and their mother Gloria (Geena Davis), a spitfire with a lacerating tongue, is trying in vain to hold the family together. The fact that Eugene is still alive—tucked out of sight in a nursing home—is a constant reminder of their collective loss.

Chance leads Billy to spend time with Eugene’s former best bud, Doug (Sebastian Gregory), and the two become fast friends, escaping the doldrums of their sad suburban lives by going streaking and pulling pranks. When the two steal a bowling ball from a parked car, however, and roll it down a hill, tragedy strikes again. Doug’s father, driving to the bingo parlor to pick up his wife, Dottie (Sarah Woods), swerves to avoid the ball and crashes in what looks to investigators—who never find said ball—like a clear-cut suicide.

If all of this seems a bit too hard to swallow, it is, and the film’s ploy to point out the cruelty of coincidence in an uncaring universe feels put-on, almost cutesy at times. And this is the problem: Accidents Happen veers precariously between comic detachment towards these moments of weird happenstance, and cloying melodrama in the way the bleary-eyed characters deal with their personal tragedies. To be fair, this is precisely the point the film is trying to make—that “sometimes bad things happen for a good reason, and sometimes things just happen,” but either way we have to learn to deal with loss. This is a valid observation, but the film’s tonal balance shifts back and forth so often that it’s hard to tell what kind of movie we’re supposed to be watching. At times the script tries to be laugh-out-loud funny—like when a relative at a wake hugs everyone, awkwardly—and elsewhere we’re meant to sob along with the characters, to join them in emotional catharsis. It just doesn’t work.

The other thing that doesn’t work is the film’s sense of place and time. Accidents Happen is set in suburban America during the 1980s, but it was shot outside Sydney using a cast that, with the exception of Geena Davis, is comprised entirely of Australians. International audiences might not catch on, but those in the U.S. will probably call out the Aussie-isms, cultural oddities, and slipping faux-American accents that make Accidents Happen feel like it takes place in some bizarre hybrid of the two countries. What’s odd is that there’s really no reason why the film has to be set in the U.S., besides the fact that writer Brian Carbee grew up in Connecticut. The setting could’ve easily been ported over to the Australian suburbs, and then the actors wouldn’t have had to strain for a credibility that they never manage to obtain here. Geena Davis has much less screen time than Harrison Gilbertson—who mumbles through his role—but she’s understandably billed as the star of the show. And, in a way, she is. Her Gloria is the most multi- dimensional aspect of the film, a conflicted mother who can’t bear to visit her catatonic son, and who hides a broken heart beneath a tough-as-nails shell of snarky one-liners. (Like, “I’m so hungry I could eat a crowbar and shit a jungle gym,” or “I swallowed the whole story like it was a shit cake covered in chocolate sauce.”) Her dialogue is too much by half, but it’s the only life in a film without a pulse.

Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Image Entertainment brings Accidents Happen to Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer framed in the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Shot natively on Panavision Genesis HD video cameras, the transfer does a decent job approximating a naturally filmic look, with a thin layer of artificial grain applied over the image in post-production, in much the same way as certain CGI films, like Monster House. (It's also possible, but less likely, that the digital image was transferred first to 35mm and then telecined. I haven't been able to dig up any solid info.) The results, especially for a moderately low budgeted film, are fairly strong. Overall clarity is somewhat mixed, but even the softer moments—typically long shots—show an appreciable amount of high definition detail. Close-ups throughout are uniformly resolved, displaying fine facial and clothing texture. Colors are selectively boosted or desaturated to achieve a nostalgic 1980s look, and nearly all of the film's interiors are cast in a dark, purposefully oppressive browns. Contrast is strong, and while lack levels have a tendency to crush shadow detail, this seems to be an intentional part of the film's look. The film sits on a single layer 25 GB disc, but I didn't notice any compression-related quirks.

Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Accidents Happen arrives with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that does what it needs to do with few aural embellishments. The mix is weighted heavily toward the front channels— where there's a decent spread—and the rear speakers get very little play. Generally, the most you'll hear is quiet ambience—chatter at a friend's house, thunder rippling during a storm—with few cross- channels movements. Although the sound design is fairly limited, the film's dynamic range is strong, with clarity in the high end and occasional LFE response, like when the bowling ball goes rolling down the street. The music is too emotionally obvious—manipulative is perhaps too strong a word—but it sounds fine, with plenty of heft and presence. Dialogue is the most important element of the mix, and it's perfectly balanced and easy to understand (If you can look past the Australian intrusions on many of the actors' faux American accents.) English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.

Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

When Featurettes Happen (SD, 3:26)
A short EPK fluff piece, with clips from the film and sound bytes from Geena Davis, director Andrew Lancaster, and writer Brian Carbee.

"Glorious Gloria" Featurette (SD, 2:16)
A brief profile of Geena Davis' frequently foul-mouthed character.

Cast & Crew Interview (SD, 8:10)
Actors Geena Davis, Harrison Gilbert, and Joel Tobeck, producer Anthony Anderson, and director Andrew Lancaster each say a few words about the film.

Deleted Scenes (SD, 5:42)
Okay...I'm not sure what's going on here. None of the five scenes included here have actually been deleted. They all exist in the current cut of the film. Weird.

Teaser (SD, 1:02)

Trailer (SD, 2:13)

Accidents Happen Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

By turns darkly comic, deeply sentimental, and impossibly melodramatic, Accidents Happen has trouble striking a consistent tone and knowing exactly what kind of movie it wants to be. Borrowing heavily from American Beauty's suburban irony and the tragic happenstance of Magnolia, the film feels derivative and diminutive in comparison. Some brief pleasure can be taken from Geena Davis' performance as a foul-mouthed, falling-apart mom, but it's not nearly enough to buoy the film. Supporters of the Australian film scene may want to venture a rental at best.