Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie Review

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Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 18, 2017

The late, great Glenne Headly’s passing may not have generated the kind of nonstop press coverage that other, supposedly higher profile, celebrity deaths have fostered, but for some of us, she’ll always be fondly remembered for any number of fine performances, including her delicious turn as Janet Colgate, the supposed mark for the competing conman interests of Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) and Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine), in Frank Oz’s wonderfully funny Dirty Rotten Scoundrels . Headly’s characterization of a woman much smarter than she might initially appear to be reminded me in some ways of Eugenia Yuan’s take on Lichi, the focal woman in this mail order bride mockumentary that seems to be aiming for some of the ultra black humor of an entry like Drop Dead Gorgeous, but without that film’s gonzo proclivities and with an emphasis on a pretty scuzzy group of characters who may invite more loathing than laughs. Co-written and co- directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland, also jointly responsible in one way or another for a rather dazzlingly wide array of projects including Married and The Last Exorcism, Mail Order Wife purports to follow the attempts of a sadsack upper west side Manhattan doorman named Adrian Martin (Adrian Martinez) who has decided to utilize the services of a mail order bride facility. Adrian is hardly what most women would term a “catch”, with a face that only a mother could love and body perhaps not exactly the model of “fit and trim”, but he seems to be sincere, and as he writes to Lichi in one of the film’s opening moments, he owns his own house and has a car (a Cadillac Eldorado, no less). The fact that Adrian turns out to have a few secrets of his own is just one of the twists and turns Mail Order Wife takes as it supposedly examines what happens when Lichi comes to the United States from Burma in order to marry Adrian and ostensibly live happily ever after.

Note: Some plot points detailed below might be considered spoiler material by some. Those with any concerns are encouraged to skip down to the technical aspects of the review, below.

Adrian, in a bit of probable wishful thinking, advertises himself to Lichi as “working in security”, but despite his rotund appearance and less than opulent lifestyle, she is evidently smitten enough to more or less agree to marry him via snail mail, without either of them having met each other in person. All of this setup is “documented” by filmmaker Andrew (Andrew Gurland), who is also seen paying for access to the mail order bride catalog and for Lichi’s trip to the United States, supposedly in order to facilitate the documentary. That little tidbit ends up spilling into the story in a perhaps unexpected way after Lichi arrives.

The first glimpse of Lichi (other than a shot of her in the catalog) takes place at JFK Airport, where Adrian and Andrew go to pick her up. She seems like the paradigmatic “submissive” Asian woman, refusing to even look up to make eye contact with Adrian. Adrian seems like a perfect gentleman, giving her a present, and offering sweetly nurturing support. The two head off to a Justice of the Peace, where they’re dutifully married in short order. It’s only when Adrian gets Lichi back to his home in Queens that things begin to enter some decidedly darker territory. The first clue that Adrian has perhaps distressingly “old school” ideas about what a wife’s “duties” are comes when one of the first things he does in instruct Lichi in the proper way to scrub out a toilet. When Lichi’s daily round of appointed tasks also includes feeding Adrian’s pet snake rodents, some viewers may be feeling an increasing pit in their stomachs, a feeling which is only bound to increase when further disturbing events unfold.

Without posting any outright spoilers, let’s just say that Adrian has “plans” for Lichi which include an unwanted operation and, later, a starring role in a kind of dastardly “home movie” that will almost certainly leave many audience members shocked and not especially prone toward laughter. That ultimately sends a tearful Lichi scurrying to Andrew for aid and comfort, something he’s only too willing to provide, taking her in despite the warnings of his family and friends. Lichi seems to have a promising career as a chef, something that Andrew fosters, but even that turns out to have unexpected ramifications. By the middle part of the film, there’s a bizarre ménage à trois of sorts that’s developed between Adrian, Andrew and Lichi, that actually involves at least a couple of other characters as well. It’s kind of turgid and unseemly, and it may tend to generate more discomfort than hilarity for some.

Adrian and Andrew therefore are temporarily at least nemeses, though even that fractured relationship gets more or less instantly healed once it is revealed that even sweet, innocent Lichi has a secret or two, leading to a weird kind of caper-esque finale to the film that seems oddly out of place with what has gone before. Mail Order Wife is obviously trafficking in blacker than black comedy, but I personally am not sure how funny it actually is. There’s a lot of patently shocking content, and it’s all played with the sort of deadpan approach that typically makes mockumentaries so amusing, but here there’s more a feeling of squalid torpor than anything resembling even dark comedy. In a way, though, Mail Order Wife recalls Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in another manner, making the salient point that it’s best never to trust anyone too much, since it seems virtually everyone is on the take in one way or the other.

Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mail Order Wife is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FilmRise with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Perhaps appropriately, given this film's "mail order" conceit, this is in essence a "mail order" Blu-ray, i.e., a MOD effort on a BD-R (which I believe is the first MOD BD-R that I've personally had in my review queue, though I admittedly may be forgetting something). While not directly related to the transfer's video quality, I have to comment on how refreshing it was to have a disc instantly boot to the main menu, instead of an interminable array of logos and previews. The transfer can't quite overcome some of the inherent deficiencies of the intentionally fuzzy looking video, with detail levels being pretty widely variable, affected by a variety of issues including lighting conditions and even focus pulling. Bitrates are also pretty widely variable, starting out almost distressingly low but later getting into healthy rates at least occasionally above 30. The outdoor material generally looks the best, with decent detail levels, though even here the kind of drab and muted palette doesn't really pop with any immediacy. Without an extended running time, and with lossy audio and standard definition supplements, Mail Order Wife resides comfortably on a BD-25 without any egregious compression artifacts.

Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mail Order Wife has two lossy Dolby Digital tracks, in 5.1 and 2.0. The 5.1 track offers some good ambient environmental placement of effects when Adrian is outside (especially in some of the denser urban locations), but otherwise there's really not a whale of a lot of difference between these tracks, courtesy of the fact that so much of the film is simply talking heads addressing the camera directly. Fidelity is fine, even if the overall sound of both tracks is a tad anemic.

Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Actor Profiles (480i; 4:32) offers some fun interviews.


• Auditions (480i; 4:15) features Adrian Martin(ez), Eugenia Yuan and Paul Thornton.


• Deleted Scenes (480i; 10:43)

Mail Order Wife Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Botko and Gurland have the earnestness of lo-fi documentaries down pat, and had Mail Order Wife offered at least one character to root for, it might have been able to generate more comedy. I consider myself to have a sense of humor that is considerably bleaker and more jaundiced than the general populace, but I personally found little to actually laugh at in this offering. Technical merits are decent if underwhelming for those considering a purchase.