6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Every year, Max, a successful restaurant owner, and Véro, his eco-friendly wife invite a merry group of friends to their beautiful beach house to celebrate Antoine's birthday and kick-start the vacation. But, this year, before they all leave Paris, their buddy Ludo is hurt in a serious accident, which sets off a dramatic chain of reactions and emotional responses...
Starring: François Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Gilles Lellouche, Benoît Magimel, Jean DujardinDrama | 100% |
Foreign | 70% |
Dark humor | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: LPCM 2.0
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In the uninterrupted four-minute opening shot of Little White Lies, we follow the charismatic lounge lizard Ludo (The Artist's Jean
Dujardin) as he exits a nightclub bathroom after an illicit rendezvous, dances through the crowd, passionately kisses a random woman, and then exits
the joint—with a cigarette dangling from his lips—into the calm, early morning Paris streets, where he zooms off on his moped, flies recklessly through
several intersections, and is out-of-nowhere broadsided by a speeding truck. It's a bravura sequence—somewhat reminiscent of the beginning of
Boogie Nights—and it immediately sets up the world that the story's nouveau riche characters inhabit.
In the behind-the-scenes material for the film, writer/director Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) discusses wanting to make a movie about his
generation, and judging from the finished product, I suspect he means affluent French thirty-to-forty-somethings, faux bohemians—fauxhemians?—
with time and money to spare. But Canet is more out to criticize than celebrate, examining the ways the members of this privileged subset hide their
fears and desires behind an artifice of wealth and good taste and social expectations. While his direction is not without its flaws, Canet has
accomplished quite a feat here—he's made an enjoyable, non-superficial film about unenjoyable and extremely superficial people.
Little White Lies arrives on Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that seems true to source and generally looks quite strong. Shot on 35mm—with a chunky negative stock, from the looks of it—the film retains its grain structure and fidelity here, untouched by digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. Be aware that the grain is quite thick at times—especially during the darker nighttime scenes, where it takes on a heavy, spackled quality—and that this does inherently have an effect on the overall clarity. Between the film stock and occasionally slipping focus, the picture isn't often razor sharp, but closeups do typically display a decent amount of fine high definition detail in facial and clothing textures. From a normal viewing distance, though, on an average-sized screen, any softness is practically unnoticeable. What you will notice is the movie's bright, summery color palette, which is nicely reproduced here with warm highlights, good saturation, and balanced contrast. With room to spare on a dual-layer disc, I didn't spot any obvious compression or encode issues. No real concerns here.
For what's essentially a quiet, dialogue-centric drama, the film's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is engaging and well-designed. While most of the activity is anchored in the front channels, the rears are utilized quite often for ambiance—nightclub noise, hospital hallway sounds, ocean-y atmospherics—and occasional directional effects. The mix is at its most intense when one of the many American pop songs kick in—from "Hang on Sloopy" to "The Weight"—filling every channel with tight, clear sound. Finally, dialogue is always clean, unmuffled, and easily understood. Especially for those of you who speak French. For those who don't, there are optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, in bright yellow lettering. Oh, and there's a French Linear PCM 2.0 stereo mixdown included on the disc too.
Basically the French equivalent of The Big Chill—by director Guillaume Canet's own admission—Little White Lies features a large ensemble cast of well-to-do thirty/forty-somethings, a nostalgic soundtrack of 1960s American pop music, and a sometimes comic, sometimes tragic examination of friendship under fire. A huge commercial success in its home country, the film should also appeal to stateside francophiles—if you watch a lot of French cinema, you'll recognize most of the actors—as well as anyone who enjoys long, involving dramas. MPI's Blu-ray release is slight on extras, but I'd still recommend a purchase here for anyone interested in the film.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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