Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie Review

You Can't Go Home Again, Because You Were Never There

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 23, 2011

Lebanon, PA is a coming-of-age tale wrapped in a reckoning-with-your-past drama overlaid with a fish-out-of-water story topped by a melancholy romance, which confronts today's hot-button issues in its sensitive portrayal of teenage pregnancy and the conflict between urban ambition and small-town family values.

And if that isn't enough PR blather for you, give me a minute, and I'll pile on some more. Everything in that marketing department word spray is accurate, more or less, but none of it captures the unique vitality that makes writer/director Ben Hickernell's film such a rarity in contemporary American cinema. Hickernell finds compelling drama in events experienced by everyday people, and he does it without sensationalizing, simplifying, making people better or worse than they are, or manipulating circumstances to create neater resolutions than those that life already provides. Hickernell's characters may not be cinematic icons, but they're just as memorable. You remember them as if you've sat and talked with them for hours.

Lebanon, PA focuses on two main characters, but it begins with Will, a 35-year-old Philadelphia ad man who is having a bad day. His live-in girlfriend, Liz, ends their relationship, saying Will doesn't have it in him to love not just her, but anyone. At work he receives word (on a Post-It) that the father he hasn't seen in years has died. The mother who raised him, Jennette (Mary Beth Hurt), has no interest in attending the funeral; so Will drives out to the small town of Lebanon, taking Liz's VW bug without her permission. It doesn't even occur to him that the bug will stick out like a sore thumb among the vans and pick-ups of Lebanon, especially since Liz has it plastered with bumper stickers proclaiming "Go Green", "Save the Whales" and "I Vote Pro-Choice".

In Lebanon, where he hasn't been since he visited his dad as a kid, Will stays in the house he barely remembers, which he'll eventually have to clean out. More importantly, he meets Andy (Ian Merrill Peakes), who lives across the street and is his father's second cousin. ("What does that make us?" Will asks. "No idea", Andy replies.) Andy is a single parent raising two teenagers, a son, Chase (Hunter Gallagher), and a daughter, CJ (Rachel Kitson, astonishing in her first film). CJ is the film's second main character: a senior in high school, intelligent and articulate, eager to visit Philadelphia with Will to tour the campus of Drexel University. Then one evening CJ blurts out to Will something she hasn't told anyone else. She's pregnant.

It would be a disservice to those who haven't seen Lebanon to describe Will's reaction, especially since it evolves over the course of the film as Will himself gets pulled this way and that. The death of a parent is a major event in any person's life, but for Will it has brought him to a place that is more than just geography. Lebanon is a question mark hovering over Will's life. Why did his father choose to live here? Who was he? What was Will to him? Will finds mementos of his childhood self and the younger version of his mother among the dead man's belongings, but he knows that's not the whole story. As Jennette says, "You don't put the arguments in the scrapbook."

Will's self-questioning leads him to, and is intensified by, a fraught relationship with Vicki (Samantha Mathis), a married English teacher at the local high school who's been offered a promotion that would require a move to Philadelphia -- a move her husband is against. Will meets Vicki with a group of her friends at Fran's Bar, the local hangout, and they like each other almost immediately. He sees her again, when he goes to the high school, where his father taught science, to clean out his desk. The more they talk, the more they warm to each other. And sometimes they talk about CJ, who is one of Vicki's brightest students. It is, after all, a small town.

CJ's pregnancy does not remain secret for long, and eventually everyone gets involved, including her father, the family priest, her friends at school, and her boyfriend and his parents. The pregnancy is not the result of some casual fumble, but of a committed, long-term relationship, and the couple used condoms. Now everyone is trying to help CJ do the "right" thing, but she herself feels left out of the equation. As an intelligent teen living in the 21st Century, she knows what the options are, including those of which her family and church disapprove. During her visit to Philadelphia with Will, she takes it upon herself to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic (and has to contend with the anti-abortion protester outside), and she also visits a local "clinic" suggested by a fellow student, where the only option they won't discuss is abortion. Rarely, if ever, has a film explored in such depth or conveyed with such an absence of posturing the magnitude of the issues that confront a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy. As CJ eventually says, all the choices available to her are bad -- though some seem less bad.

Some of the actors that Hickernell considered turned him down, because they wanted clearer resolution for their characters. Hickernell wisely held out for actors who were comfortable playing characters who, like most people in life, get through major events and move on without the closure of a neatly scripted climax or denouement. Every major character in Lebanon, PA experiences something that could be called life-changing (even Will's stony-faced mother, Jennette, has some tough moments), but in the end people remain pretty much who they are, even if they make new friends and learn a few things along the way. Lebanon, PA respects these basic tenets, but still manages to deliver a satisfying conclusion, because it leaves you wondering how things will work out for Will, CJ, Andy and Vicki in the future. There can be no higher praise for a film than that its characters live on beyond the credits.

Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lebanon, PA was shot digitally at 4K resolution with the Red camera, then color-corrected on a digital intermediate. The result on this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is consistent with other Blu-rays I've seen of films sourced from the Red system, which is say that the image is clean, detailed and crisp, with exceptional depth of field and very fine color rendition. Black levels are excellent, there is almost no video noise (with an important exception that I'll discuss in a moment), and compression errors were non-existent. The color palette is wonderfully varied, from the cool whites and blues of Philadelphia (and the deliberately "hot" interiors where Will works) to the greens and browns of the countryside on the way to Lebanon, to the amber-lit interior at Fran's Bar, to the darker "blue jean" blues of Lebanon interiors.

Several objects are the one area of concern for video noise. In the opening sequence, when Will rushes up the stairs to the elevated train, the blue-grey vertical panels of the steps shimmer with noise. At approximately 42:50, Will is wearing a blue heather short sleeve shirt during a phone call with his mother, and it's positively alive with shimmery noise. Depending on one's monitor, the effect may be more or less pronounced. On my 72" DLP set, it was enough to break my concentration on the film and startle me into making notes. On my much smaller computer screen, it was less obvious but still present. Since I can't imagine an issue like this surviving the digital intermediate stage, my guess is that it happened during the conversion to Blu-ray. These were the only two instances I spotted.

Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The PCM 2.0 soundtrack more than gets the job done of conveying dialogue and essential sound effects clearly. The haunting and atmospheric original soundtrack by Matt Pond PA, who has appeared on the soundtracks of Chuck and The O.C., is faithfully represented.

Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: Supplements designated as "SD" have been formatted on the disc at 1080p, but the source is clearly standard definition; combing, aliasing and other artifacts of upscaling are evident.

• Commentary with Director/Writer/Editor Ben Hickernell and Producer Jason Contino: Hickernell and Contino speak continuously, and whenever Hickernell lapses into watching the film, Contino yanks him back into commenting. They cover the project's five-year development, casting, location searches, the shooting process and editing. Hickernell served as his own editor simply because they didn't have enough money to hire one, but he consulted with a professional editor just to get an outsider perspective and concluded that independent eyes are essential. His comments on the film's subjects and the balance he tried to maintain are illuminating, as are his reports of some of the reactions he has received from viewers.



• Behind the Scenes (SD; 1.78:1; 11:37): This featurette follows the format of an EPK, but it's less slick and more sincere, because there was no studio involved. Interviewees include Hickernell, Hopkins, Mathis, Kitson, Hurt and Peakes (who is very funny). The location footage provides a good sense of the production's small scale. A few amusing outtakes follow the credits.



• Alternate Opening (SD; 1.78:1; 4:43): The film's original opening intercut scenes of Will in Philadelphia (which remain in the film) with scenes of CJ in Lebanon (which have been removed but are presented here). As explained in the commentary, early audiences found the opening confusing, because they weren't sure who the film was about. Also, if you watch the sequence after seeing the film, it's hard to imagine absorbing all the character background that's been packed into those first few minutes. An audience needs time to get its bearings.



• Deleted Scenes (SD; 1.78:1; app. 8:53): There are seven scenes, all quite short. No commentary is provided, but the feature commentary indicates that all (or nearly all) were cut for pacing. Some are simply longer versions of existing scenes.



• Trailer (HD; 1.78:1; 2:17): An effective trailer that provides the authentic flavor of the film.

Lebanon, PA Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Films like Lebanon, PA are hard to get financed, harder to get made, still harder to make well, and nearly impossible to get released. Hickernell managed to do the first three, but the film's release was limited to festivals and a total of six theaters. However, the Blu-ray is readily available and well-engineered (except for a few instances of noise) and comes with informative extras. The Blu-ray format was tailor-made for films like these, which could otherwise not be seen at their best quality. Both the film and the Blu-ray are highly recommended.