Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

How to Talk to Girls at Parties Blu-ray Movie Review

Earth Boys Are Even Easier.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 13, 2018

The lack of an exclamation point at the end of the title of How to Talk to Girls at Parties might be a subliminal clue that this is not a musical, though fans of John Cameron Mitchell, this film’s director and co-writer, may recall that his “actual” musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, was similarly unencumbered with that signifier of (supposed) excitement, so maybe that “old school” way of identifying a song and dance spectacular no longer holds true. (The foregoing is a joke, just to be clear.) As angsty and provocative as Hedwig and the Angry Inch undeniably was, Cameron’s writing was often perceptive and at times raucously funny. How to Talk to Girls at Parties flirts (no pun intended) with the latter two elements, but never really manages to work up much content in either the perception or humor arenas, and instead tends to come off as a weird kinda sorta remake of Earth Girls Are Easy combined with Liquid Sky, at least in its broadest general outlines.

Though How to Talk to Girls at Parties may not be an “official” music, it is stuffed to the gills with music, not just courtesy of source cues, but due to one of its central plot conceits, that an unlikely romance between an Earthling and an alien takes place during the nascency of the punk movement in the United Kingdom, circa 1977. The human in this case is a kid named Enn (Alex Sharp), a teen boy who lives for the punk scene along with a coterie of his buddies, including John (Ethan Lawrence) and Vic (AJ Lewis), all of whom frequent various clubs to take in the latest music that Croydon has to offer. Their first stop is to hear a band called the Dyschords, managed by an imperious, chain smoking woman named Boadicea (Nicole Kidman, in a fright wig and various costuming appurtenances).

As anyone who has ever attended a concert will probably agree, while the live music performance is certainly a focal element, the “after party” can be where the “real” action is, and that’s where the boys then head off, ending up at a mysterious mansion from which an array of multicolored lights emanate from haunted looking windows. That array of colors only continues when the boys are let inside by an enigmatic, pretty much expressionless, woman named Stella (Ruth Wilson), who escorts the lad into what seems to be a bus and truck Cirque du Soleil performance by similarly latex clad weirdos. Of course it turns out these bizarre denizens are in fact travelers from another world, but as with quite a bit else in How to Talk to Girls at Parties, specifics are left by the wayside. While Vic ends up having a little escapade with Stella that puts a whole new “spin” on the kind of “exploration” regularly attributed to aliens (I’m trying to be a bit circumspect for general reading audiences), Enn ends up after some interstitial interchanges meeting Zan (Elle Fanning).

It’s obvious that Mitchell is going for a kind of interplanetary Romeo and Juliet vibe here, but unfortunately he seems to have strayed a bit from the short Neil Gaiman story that provided the spark for the film. There’s a whole subtext here of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee, as well as some almost political or at least sociopolitical musings that pit the upstart punkers against what turn out to be almost reactionary conformist aliens. It’s a kind of fun “twist” on the way some might think a dialectic like this “should” play out (i.e., the aliens should be the progressives), but it never really clicks the way it should and in fact the whole second act of the film kind of slows to a standstill at times as some of these ideas are developed.

The fact that budgetary concerns seem to have altered the technology used to shoot the film (see the video section below, and the article I’ve linked to) might suggest that similar worries may have prevented the film from really going for the gusto in terms of its science fiction underpinnings. But what tends to work here, at least in fits and starts, is the connection Enn (short for Henry, by the way) and his friends connect to their kind of haphazard culture, and how Enn attempts to bring Zan in on the “fun”. In fact what may be the highlight of the film concerns a relatively minor moment where Zan is recruited to perform with those aforementioned Dyschords. It’s here that the film really works up some significant energy that unfortunately long swaths of the rest of it can’t really attain.

While I was kinda sorta charmed by How to Talk to Girls at Parties despite what I saw as some deficits, my colleague Brian Orndorf seemed to enjoy the film considerably more than I did. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

How to Talk to Girls at Parties is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Perhaps surprisingly, given the gritty, grainy look of this transfer, How to Talk to Girls at Parties was digitally captured with the fairly new Arri Amira cameras, ones which were evidently specially equipped to handle what cinematographer Frankie DeMarco calls shooting both Super 35 and Super 16 on the camera's imaging chip. There's a really interesting interview with DeMarco where he goes into quite a bit of detail on the camera and the lenses he utilized which I found in researching background for this review here. The difference between the supposed Super 35 and Super 16 segments is quite striking and noticeable, with attendant upticks in grittiness and at least somewhat less fine detail in the "16" scenes. What actually may initially strike some viewers as even more noticeable are the changes to the palette. The opening sequences and some interstitials featuring the aliens are vividly suffused and rather warm looking, while a lot of the "real life" scenes featuring the somewhat haggard punkers have a much more tamped down, maybe even dowdier, appearance. A lot of the film takes place either at night or in dimly lit environments like the punk clubs, and there are variables in the amount of shadow detail on display as well. It's interesting that in the above linked review DeMarco states plans were well under way to shoot the entire film in (real) Super 16, but the heterogeneity on display here actually ends up working rather nicely for the film, and Lionsgate's encode doesn't encounter many if any hurdles along the way.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

How to Talk to Girls at Parties has an expectedly raucous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that really springs to forceful life as various punk anthems (some co-written by Mitchell, by the way) play on the soundtrack. The crowded chaos of some of the clubs also provides near onslaughts of immersion. Even quieter dialogue scenes are regularly peppered with discrete channelization of isolated effects or ambient environmental sounds. All elements are presented with excellent clarity and good prioritization on this problem free track.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director John Cameron Mitchell and Actors Elle Fanning and Alex Sharp


• Making an Other Worldly Production (1080p; 12:22) is a suitably energetic EPK with some fun interviews and quite a bit of behind the scenes footage (and stills).


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 7:43)

How to Talk to Girls at Parties Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

How to Talk to Girls at Parties might simply be a bit too ambitious for its own good, something that may strike some as an odd assessment, given the film's kind of freewheeling, chaotic style. But Mitchell attempts to cram some sociopolitical commentary into this film that frankly has a bit of a hard time fitting. The look of the film is quite distinctive, and I highly recommend those interested read the article I linked to in the video section, while audio is boisterously enjoyable. With caveats noted, and probably especially for fans of its cast, How to Talk to Girls at Parties comes Recommended.