Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie Review

Hope springs eternal.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 30, 2014

Elsa & Fred essentially moves beyond the Romantic Comedy genre while still embracing it. The film is tenderly funny and heartfelt but it's not so much about X's and O's and random bits of hilarity. Instead, it's about the goodness of the human heart and the joys that companionship -- the right companionship -- can bring and how they can erase long-seeded pains, raise one's quality of life, and maybe even allow one to stumble into a real-life fairy tale along the way. And it can all happen at any age. The film follows a couple of pained elderly people who fate brings together for a whirlwind, life-changing friendship and romance that shows that one can live a lifetime even when one's lifetime is dwindling down, that one can find purpose and peace and a reason to live even when the world says it's too late. It's a tender, touching film, comfortable in its simplicity and sincere in its purpose, a handsome reminder that life may have a beginning and an end but it's what one does in that time -- even for a short period of time -- that matters more than numbers on a calendar page.

Ready.

Fred (Christopher Plummer), a wealthy widower who is on far too many pills, is placed in an apartment by his greedy daughter Lydia (Marcia Gay Harden) and her husband Jack (Chris Noth), the latter of whom Fred doesn't particularly like. They're hoping Fred will invest in their latest "get rich quick" scheme and maneuver him to, essentially, his final rating place, perhaps as a means of slowly dripping him of everything he has. Little do they know that the move will slowly but surely reinvigorate him instead. He comes to know his elderly neighbor Elsa (Shirley MacLaine), a loner who claims she was once painted by Pablo Picasso himself and who dreams of one day recreating a famous scene from her favorite film, La Dolce Vita. He finds her irresistibly charming, and she likewise comes to fall for him. The two strike up a relationship that blossoms into something more than neighborly friendship, a relationship that will reshape the rest of their lives and write over all the baggage they've carried throughout their troubled adulthoods.

The film is essentially remake of the 2005 Spanish film of the same name, directed by Marcos Carnevale and starring China Zorrilla and Manuel Alexandre. This 2014 view on the story is a charmer, a little fireball of a Romantic Comedy that's fueled by a spunky, carefree performance from Shirley MacLaine who sinks her teeth into the part and creates a memorable character, one who falls head over heels but does so in a believable manner, not in some make-believe, because-the-script-says-so fashion. Her energy and spirit shine in every scene, and she makes the attraction Fred finds in her character, and his slow emergence from his woe-is-me shell, fully believable. It happens a little quickly for convenience's sake and time constraints, but MacLaine certainly lights up the screen even at age 80. Plummer, likewise, is excellent, making a believable transition from grumpy old man to a lifetime partner whose frown becomes a smile on his face which becomes a twinkle in his eye which becomes an exposing of his very soul. He and MacLaine make an excellent screen couple, helped, certainly, by a good story and script that allow them all the room they need to shine.

The film is completely a reflection of its characters, enjoying a real feeling of vitality and energy that rarely slows down. It gets the most of its runtime, developing a full, satisfying relationship that is, like the movie, constrained by time but otherwise open to a world of possibilities. It's sweet and unassuming, simply photographed until its end which is a touch more complex as it blends truth, fiction, and the imagination into a charming, albeit slightly clumsy, look at a critical moment in the movie that's built more around the outward rather than the inward, the first time the movie ever fully gets away from its heart and focuses its attention on the superficial. It's still satisfying in context, however uneven the delivery may be.

Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Elsa & Fred's 1080p presentation is efficient yet unremarkable. It presents itself cleanly and with a smooth, somewhat pasty appearance that often prevents details from exploding off the screen, settling instead for a noticeable flatness. Still, the 1080p resolution does allow for a fairly well defined picture that captures details with some level of sharpness and effectiveness, revealing finer skin and clothing lines to basic HD satisfaction. Colors are never richly vibrant, instead, like the detailing, appearing a bit flat in spots yet generally meeting palette requirements. Skin tones are fairly lifeless and lacking nuance, while black levels are never remarkable. Light noise is a factor on occasion, but there are no other major technical maladies of note. Elsa & Fred certainly isn't going to change the way people watch and think about Blu-ray, but the transfer works well enough for casual viewing.

Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Elsa & Fred features an adequate Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This is a dialogue-heavy film; the spoken word does remain firmly grounded in the center and plays with accurate, lifelike reproduction that only goes a little off-kilter in the obviously re-recorded climax where lip sync appears to be a very minor issue. Otherwise, the film's mostly light music (save for a few more aggressive beats heard flowing from car speakers) plays with commendable precision through the front; the back never carries much of anything in terms of musical support. Neither do the rears carry much ambient sound. The chatter and clanking silverware din heard in a restaurant sequence in chapter seven remains largely the property of the front three, though there are a few noticeable occurrences of directionality through the entire stage when traffic passes around early in the movie.

Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Beyond an Elsa & Fred trailer (480i, 2:16) (and trailers for other Millennium titles, including Reach Me, The Humbling, By the Gun, and Fading Gigolo), this release contains only one extra. "Making Of" Featurette (1080i, 18:51) features cast and crew discussing plot, the film's origins, reworking this script from the original film, casting and performances, Michael Radford's direction, character qualities, shooting locations, and more.

Elsa & Fred Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even as Elsa & Fred flows through predictable genre ebbs and flows, it finds a simple charm through complex characters made effortlessly relatable thanks to a good script and two terrific lead performances. The movie is accessibly friendly but emotionally deep right on through to its final shot. It's a traditional movie in nontraditional clothes that doesn't redefine a genre but instead makes it feel meaningful, for once, with a strong message on life's gifts that can redefine an existence even at its end. Millennium Entertainment's Blu-ray release of Elsa & Fred features adequate video and audio. Supplements are limited to a trailer and a brief making-of. Recommended on the strength of the film.