Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie Review

A woman called Britt-Marie.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 15, 2020

While a lot of Britt-Marie Was Here may strike some viewers as being overly familiar, the film at least makes one thing clear: films about women “of a certain age” finding their voice are not limited to American fare like Where'd You Go, Bernadette and/or Gloria Bell (and the fact that the latter film was an Americanized adaptation of the earlier Spanish film Gloria also lends credence to this thesis). In what might be charitably termed “middle aged female empowerment”, with a less forgiving analysis tending toward “senior citizen female empowerment”, Britt-Marie Was Here plies the by now well worn idea of so-called “new beginnings” at least relatively late in life. The film is culled from a novel by Fredrik Backman, whom some readers may recognize as having written the source novel from which A Man Called Ove was culled, and the two properties, while in many says rather dissimilar, do share an underlying idea of a focal character getting on in years who may occasionally be on the shall we say “blunt” side. In this instance that character is, well, a woman called Britt-Marie (Pernilla August), who narrates the film with the same sort of obsessive compulsive (or possibly anal retentive) precision that she enjoys (?) in her everyday tasks of cleaning and cooking for her husband of 40 years, Kent (Peter Haber).

In just the first of several frankly not very surprising developments that inform Britt-Marie Was Here, after the film documents the almost Groundhog Day-esque series of daily rituals Britt-Marie performs, it quickly reveals that Kent has been having an affair with a woman named Camilla and has suffered a heart attack for his passion. Britt-Marie first does a little cleaning, and then just leaves her wedding ring on the couple's kitchen table and takes off. She goes to some kind of employment agency (governmental, perhaps?) whose scene might have benefited from a bit more fleshing out, and is offered a kind of standard issue "fish out of water" job, working as a kind of Youth Counselor at a facility in the remote town of Borg. You may be able to more or less accurately guess a number of things that happen next, including Britt-Marie educating a bunch of recalcitrant children in better manners (including of course how to clean up a mess they've made), coaching them in soccer, and even (in the non-kid category) encountering a bit of romance.

Britt-Marie Was Here, while inarguably formulaic, does have its own peculiar charm, which may remind some of whimsical films where some kind of remote locale is populated with a bunch of eccentrics (Local Hero springs immediately to my mind, though there are obvious manifest differences between the two films, but I'm sure others can think of their own lists of similarly themed outings). There's a sweetness here that's undeniable, and August is always enjoyable, bringing a kind of no nonsense focus to her characterization. The "message" here has obviously been told before, but its retelling in this version may resonate with some "middle aged" folks in particular. The film may ultimately not have much (if anything) new to say, but it's breezy enough, with some warm characters and a few wryly amusing (if rarely laugh out loud hilarious) bits sprinkled throughout the mix.

Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Britt-Marie Was Here is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is another film where the IMDb doesn't give any help with regard to technical specs, and I haven't really been able to find any meaningful thing online with regard to the shoot, either, but I'm once again assuming a digital capture finished at a 2K DI. This is an appealingly sharp and detailed looking transfer a lot of the time, but as can perhaps be gleaned from some of the screenshots accompanying this review, the palette can tend to be tamped down at times. While I wouldn't say things are really "graded" in the traditional sense here, there are a prevalence of blues and purples in both practical items like costumes and props, but also just in terms of general lighting or environmental regimens, which can keep things on the cool side. That said, things do warm up considerably in some of the outdoor soccer material, which probably not so coincidentally can offer some of the best detail levels when there's not "furious" action in the frame. A propos of nothing other than my personal curiosity, this disc sure looks like it's a "double ring" BD-50, but my Blu-ray drive is indicating it's a BD-25.

Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Britt-Marie Was Here features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Swedish, with forced English subtitles. This is an agreeable track, one which derives some decent surround activity when the story ventures out of doors, including but not necessarily limited to some of the soccer "action". Ginge Anvik's kind of cheeky Danny Elfman-esque score also is placed nicely in the surround channels. Britt-Marie's narration, which is a constant throughout the film, is placed front and center and is always mixed forward even if there are other elements consigned to the audio background.

Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Britt-Marie Was Here Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:37)

Britt-Marie Was Here Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As mentioned above, the town Britt-Marie moves to is called Borg, and like another famous use of that word, resistance is probably futile with regard to this film's predictable but charming story. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.