Fremont Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Fremont Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 27, 2023

If you've ever wondered if there's actually someone who writes the fortunes found in fortune cookies, this charmingly low key film provides an answer. Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is an expat Afghani who has found herself in California and, despite a college degree from Kabul and a former career providing translation services for the United States Army, has been able to find gainful employment in America only as a worker in a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco, across the bay from where she lives in the film's titular town. Decidedly vignette driven and with a deadpan quality which may actually make it play less than laugh out loud hilariously for some, Fremont is a beautiful little character study of both the immigrant experience as well as a perhaps devastating deconstruction of the so-called "talking cure" used by psychiatrists, since Donya, suffering from insomnia and other emotional issues, more or less crashes the practice of an analyst named Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington).

What's kind of interesting about Donya's "plight" is that, however unusual it is for her to work in a fortune cookie factory, she's actually working for some really nice people, including a man whose father founded the company. While perhaps not as "familial" as some workplaces, there's still a feeling of community at Handmade Fortune Cookies, though it has evidently done little to quell the post traumatic stress disorder that Donya is experiencing from her time in Kabul. The film has several subtly piquant interchanges between Donya and her coworkers, as well as the boss man, and it even seems like Donya is "upwardly mobile" at the factory, even if contextually that may not mean all that much.

Fremont culls some wry humor out of any number of "mismatches", including the totally bizarre relationship that develops between Donya and Dr. Anthony. A late development involving a mechanic named Daniel (Jeremy Allen White) sparks some surprising emotion, and in fact I think most viewers are going to leave this "quiet" little film with an outsized lump in their throats.

Fremont Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fremont is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. Your intrepid reviewer found this really interesting interview with cinematographer Laura Valladio, which gets into both the use of the Arri Alexa Mini, some vintage lenses and a workflow that saw the original captures being morphed from color to black and white. The result is an often rather sumptuous looking affair, at least considering the kind of dowdy environments that Donya often finds herself in. Contrast is excellent, if perhaps intentionally skewed a bit (see the above article for some of Valladio's comments on blooming and highlights. Detail levels are generally great throughout, though, again, related to often "mundane" items like textures on work uniforms or even the clumpy dough used to make the cookies.

Fremont Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fremont features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options, with the dialogue largely in English, but with some interstitial scenes in Dari when Donya speaks to other Afghan refugees. There's not a ton of layering to the sound design, which instead often features characters seemingly addressing things directly to the camera, and with a lot of "two hander" dialogue scenes playing out between a couple of characters. Occasional ambient environmental effects can enter the fray, as in some of the factory scenes, or, later, when Donya gets out and about in a car. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Fremont Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 2:10)

Fremont Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Years ago when one of my now adult sons was a kid getting ready to maybe enter first or second grade, we took him out to get new school clothes and then we all went to dinner at one of our favorite Asian food establishments. When we got to opening our dessert cookies and reading the little paper inside, my son's said "You will soon get new clothes", and he instantly responded with, "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?", which has become something of a family mantra for us. That fortune may actually be too specific for the Handmade Fortune Cookie's impresario, who cautions Donya to keep things generalized and somewhat ambivalent, advice that Donya may or may not decide to follow. This is a quirky film by any standard, but it's incredibly heartfelt and delivers some surprising emotional heft. Technical merits are solid, and Fremont comes Recommended.