Committed Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Committed Blu-ray Movie Review

When a Man Leaves a Woman

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 22, 2013

"I guess some people are born with a knack for faith . . ."

In retrospect, the 1990s were a golden age for independent film, a time when national prosperity and corporate diversity in the movie business allowed numerous distinctive voices to obtain funding. One such voice was writer-director Lisa Krueger, who managed to make two features before the money dried up. The first, Manny & Lo (1996), was about two runaway sisters who kidnap a clerk in a baby supply store; in a sign of Krueger's ability to spot talent, the film featured a pre-teen Scarlett Johannson in one of her earliest roles. The second film was Committed, which is loaded with familiar faces, some that were already famous, and some that became better known later on.

Krueger's work is the kind of left-field oddball stuff that festival audiences routinely love and general audiences shrug off. After Committed was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival (and won for its cinematography), Miramax released it to a handful of theaters the following April, and no one showed up. The film had to find its audience on DVD, as such films usually do.

Because Committed is told entirely from the point of view of a narrator, Joline, who sees the world from a perspective that others don't share—it's the quality that most defines her—the film requires something of a leap of faith on the part of the audience, who has to accept Joline as they find her. Appropriately enough, "leap of faith" is an important concept for Joline. It's something she does when she feels a task or an obligation calling to her urgently but can't explain why. She follows her instincts, and the intensity with which she does so is what makes her truly "committed". It's also why she has to keep explaining that no, she really isn't stalking her ex-husband. But somehow, once you have to start giving that explanation, you're already in trouble. It takes Joline the entire length of Committed to reconcile the depth of her commitment with a world that doesn't take these things as seriously as she does.

We first encounter Joline (Heather Graham) on the day of her wedding to Carl (Luke Wilson). In a fit of nerves, Carl defies the traditional ban on seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony and bursts in on Joline as she's preparing, closely followed by the best man, Joline's brother, Jay (Casey Affleck). For a woman who believes in luck, chance and fate, this is a bad sign, but the wedding goes off without a hitch.

A little less than two years later, however, all is not well. Carl is in a funk, his career as a photojournalist stalled, because his editor keeps sending him to cover stories about restaurants and food. Meanwhile, Joline energetically manages a downtown New York music club, where her number one attribute is that any promise she makes is absolutely reliable. Jay works at the club, as does Joline's friend Meg (Summer Phoenix). The latest musical act is a glitzy fellow named Chicky (Wood Harris, who would shortly become better known as the fearsome Avon Barksdale on The Wire). When Jay isn't working, he lives with a lesbian couple (Clea Duvall and Kim Dickens), one of whom occasionally shares his bed.

One day, though, Joline returns home to an apartment emptied of Carl's belongings and a note saying he's left. Joline, whose wedding band is a tattoo around her ring finger, can't wrap her mind around the abandonment, and her mind wobbles in despair. But then, at a party originally planned to cheer up Carl that Joline refuses to cancel (look for Jon Stewart among the guests), she has a breakthrough: Carl just needs her to find him and repair their marriage. Off goes Joline in a rented car criss-crossing the highways and byways of Texas until she finds the husband to whom she committed before God and man to be faithful for life. But first she takes yet another leap of faith on a soulful car-jacker (Art Alexakis) to whom she gives enough money for a ticket home to his mother's house on Long Island so that he can get clean and start over. (The film is full of such small detours.)

Why Texas out of all the fifty states? It would take too long to explain. But there's a logic to it. After several misadventures, Joline finds Carl taking pictures for a newspaper in El Paso. (Her meeting with his editor, played by Dylan Baker, is a comic gem.) But Joline doesn't want to surprise Carl unduly. She's looking for the right way to "ease" the two of them back into wedded bliss. To that end she hangs back and observes the new life he's made for himself. How could anyone confuse such behavior with stalking?

Joline's bizarre approach allows the film to introduce an additional group of characters. These include Carl's new girlfriend, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant named Carmen (Patricia Velasquez, who is probably best known as the beautiful Egyptian princess Anck Su Namun in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns). When Carmen learns that Carl has a wife, she drops him instantly, but in an odd turn, she bonds with Joline, whom Carmen takes to meet her grandfather, a Mexican medicine man she calls Grampy (actor and director Alfonso Arau, whose extensive credits include The Wild Bunch and The Three Amigos). Meanwhile, Carmen's ex- boyfriend, T-Bo (Mark Ruffalo), cruises his truck past Carl's condo, threatening violence, and Carl's neighbor, Neil (Goran Visnjic), an amateur craftsman, shamelessly flirts with Joline whenever he spots her parked nearby, spying on Carl's place. Adding to the complications is Jay, who comes to El Paso to check on his sister, takes one look at Carmen, and decides to stay for a while.

How does this mess get untangled? It would be unfair to say, but Mary Kay Place, one of the stars of Manny & Lo, has a cameo as a psychiatrist, and a certain amount of magic is involved, courtesy of "Grampy". Since the film is a comedy, some sort of happy ending is essential.

But calling Committed a comedy doesn't mean that it has jokes, punchlines or belly laughs. The film is comedic in its refusal to take anything seriously, including itself and its heroine, and its ability to portray the absurdity of Joline's quest without mocking it is a delicate balance. Krueger acknowledges the difficulty, maybe even the impossibility, of two people committing themselves to a lifetime together, even as she celebrates the nobility of the effort. It's such an unlikely undertaking that you need all the help you can get, whether from ancient magic, modern psychology or just dumb luck.

Committed Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Echo Bridge's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers a reasonable facsimile of Tom Krueger's (director Lisa's brother) Sundance award-nominated cinematography for Committed. The source material is almost entirely free of damage. Detail is well-rendered throughout, and the color palette is delicately shaded to distinguish between the bright (and sometimes dusty) Texas scenes and the grungy, darkened downtown Manhattan clubs, apartments and streets from which first Carl and then Joline depart. The film grain looks relatively natural, although a touch of sharpening can be detected from time to time. Overall, though, this is one of the more film-like transfers I have seen from Echo Bridge. With a running time of 98 minutes and no extras, compression issues on a BD-25 were non-existent.

Committed Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Motion Picture Sound Editors guild nominated Committed for a Golden Reel award for its music editing, but you won't be able to appreciate the work on this Blu-ray's DTS-HD MA 2.0 track, because it doesn't provide the film's original mix, which was 5.1. That mix did appear on the 2000 DVD release by Miramax on Disney's Buena Vista label, but as Echo Bridge too often does with its Blu-rays of films released in 5.1, it has provided only a stereo soundtrack. It's an adequate track for telling the story; the dialogue is clear, and there's noticeable separation between the right and left in the reproduction of the musical selections and the original scoring by the group Calexico. However, the track offers little in the sense of ambiance or environment in the diverse settings where Committed takes place. Everything remains in front. On this score, Miramax (under its new owners) and Echo Bridge have once again short-changed Blu-ray purchasers and movie fans.

Committed Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc contains no extras. The 2000 Miramax DVD had a trailer.

Committed Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Committed isn't for everyone, but it's unfortunate that Miramax and Echo Bridge have once again supplied a Blu-ray that does not rise to minimum standards of quality by providing both picture and sound that match the original theatrical presentation. The new owners of Miramax should either reconsider their licensing arrangements or demand higher standards from their licensees. Too much of their catalog is being mishandled. I can recommend Committed for its picture, but as often with Echo Bridge, fans are faced with the choice between a superior image with second-rate audio and (if you can track down the Miramax DVD) a standard-definition picture with the original soundtrack.