Estranged Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Estranged Blu-ray Movie Review

Welcome back, cripple.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 9, 2016

Films that feature an amnesiac can often be viscerally exciting for armchair sleuths who thrive on trying to figure out what is “really” going on. In some of the better films featuring this conceit, films like 1965’s Gregory Peck thriller Mirage, there’s a discomfiting sense that everything is not exactly as it’s being portrayed, but the audience is in exactly the same position as the Peck character, trying to ferret out the truth in a twisted labyrinth of conspiracy, lies and deceit. Unfortunately there’s no such layering or even any subtlety to much of the presentation in Estranged, a film which posits an amnesiac young woman forced to return to her, well, estranged family after a horrifying accident has left her not just without a memory, but without consistent use of her legs. It’s obvious from the get go in the screenplay by Simon Fantauzzo that the family is patently weird, and probably therefore evil, and so there’s little to no suspense in the basic foundational setup of what’s going on. The audience may in fact not know why things are happening, but there’s little ambiguity in figuring out who the bad guys (and/or gals) are in this film, leaving the plot to unspool in an occasionally creepy flood of paranoia and, ultimately, some fairly disgusting story mechanics that will make those uncomfortable memories of your last (dysfunctional) family reunion seem like a Golden Era of paradisiacal happiness.

January (Amy Manson) and her boyfriend Callum (Simon Quartermain) are tooling around South America on a little scooter, traversing some twisting and winding highways and byways and evidently having a carefree and exuberant tour, at least until a head on collision puts an end to their revelry. The film quickly elides January’s pretty devastating injuries, leading to a scene featuring the pair driving up to the palatial British country manor that is January’s family home, though she has absolutely no memory of it, or in fact of her family. Had the film introduced a gaggle of at least relatively “normal” relatives, there might have been more actual suspense generated, but instead we’re plopped down in a grotesque array of weird types. There’s a martinet father named Albert (James Cosmo), a seemingly lobotomized mother named Marilyn (Eileen Nicholas), a creepy, perhaps incestuously minded, son named Laurence (James Lance) and a total bitch of a sister named Kathrine (Nora- Jane Noone). And just for good measure there’s a patently villainous seeming butler named Thomas (Craig Conway), which is of course an immediate tip off that he’ll be the only character with a decent moral compass as the film progresses.

Since there’s no question that the family is up to no good, the film’s suspense (such as it is) derives from January’s attempts to regain her memory (memory which of course starts interrupting the narrative flow in little bursts of recollection), notably to help explain why she evidently up and fled the family home several years previously. When Callum “mysteriously” disappears (again, the film is so unambiguous about everything, there’s no actual mystery), January is left on her own to try to wend her way through an extremely smarmy set of family interrelationships.

It’s at this point that the film starts to get into more of a “torture porn” ambience, though in defense of the film’s rather tamped down presentational style, it’s more mental than physical torture (though the second type crops up in a manner of speaking). Once again the total lack of ambiguity tends to rob the film of some potential emotional impact. January is obviously a damsel in quite a bit of distress, but the plot mechanics are so ridiculously hackneyed that as troubling as events are, they have virtually no real resonance. Instead, some audience members will probably become more like Marilyn (and eventually January herself), in other words numb to what’s going on. By the time Thomas shows up to “save the day” while also becoming this film’s “Moishe the Explainer”, it’s all largely for naught, since few will care about the series of unlikely explanations that accrue.

If the ultimate “reason” for everything is on the ludicrous (and weirdly Southern Gothic) side of things, there’s actually a kind of interesting subtext here involving generational justice playing out in an admittedly unseemly manner. The central mystery at the core of Estranged is actually quite compelling, but the “on the nose” portrayal of an unhinged family only ends up unhinging any real suspense element, leaving the film feeling slightly distasteful and exploitative.

Estranged Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Estranged is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. The IMDb lists this as having been shot with Red One (MX) cameras, and the image here is generally quite sharp and well detailed, though often cloaked in a hazy, murky quality due to frequent low light situations and environments. Interstitial flashback elements, which sometimes last for a nanosecond, are often desaturated and further tweaked to have streaks running diagonally through the image (see screenshot 5). Colors are never overly vivid, probably by design, even when the film ventures out of doors for some relatively early sequences (the bulk of the film is claustrophobically set in rather confined spaces within the house). Aside from the flashback scenes and a couple of slate colored exterior sequences, there's not a lot of overt color grading going on, and the palette, while a bit tamped down, looks relatively natural most of the time. Close-ups offer some nice fine detail, though occasionally that tendency may provoke squirms in the more squeamish as some of the indignities are foisted off on January.

Estranged Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Estranged features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one which achieves its subtle but consistent immersion courtesy of discrete placement of environmental effects and the like rather than any hackneyed sonic tropes like sudden LFE (the film is commendably free of jump cuts with startle effects on the soundtrack). While much of the surround activity is most noticeable in earlier outdoor sequences, even in the film's many interior scenes there's good attention paid to ambient reverb and differing locales within the house. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized on this problem free track.

Estranged Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080p; 31:22) is as generic as its title, but does feature some decent behind the scenes footage and agreeable enough interviews, including some kind of odd ones with the screenwriter clad in a terry cloth bathrobe.


• Trailer (1080p; 2:09)

Estranged Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Estranged is probably best characterized as a near miss, for there's a lot here that is palpably creepy and ultimately fairly disturbing. But the film lacks nuance and that best aspect of damsel in distress thrillers—ambiguity. It's patently obvious January's family is bat guano crazy from the get go, and the "twist" involving apparently demonic butler Thomas' actual intentions is also telegraphed from virtually his first scene. Performances are generally quite good and technical merits fine on the Blu-ray for those considering a purchase.