Mosaic Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Mosaic Blu-ray Movie Review

What's app?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 10, 2018

Whatever happened to seamless branching? Once touted as one of the supposedly exciting bells and whistles which would be accompanying disc based home entertainment releases, it seems to be largely forgotten and/or ignored these days. That said, of course, it, kind of unlike BD Live, another supposed alluring feature touted in early marketing of Blu-rays in particular, does still show up, at least occasionally, typically with releases that have more than one cut of a film on a disc. Seamless branching would seem to be a prerequisite for Mosaic, at least in terms of its original “app” form, which allowed users to navigate from a variety of perspectives while also reviewing data (like case files) linked to a murder mystery. While it’s understandable why the broadcast version of Mosaic couldn’t opt for this strategy, it seems like it might have been a cool way to present the series on Blu-ray, but instead this release offers the relatively straightforward version that HBO subscribers saw when the miniseries premiered a few months ago. While it’s obvious that writer Ed Solomon and director Steven Soderbergh want to deconstruct the traditional murder mystery with Mosaic, unfortunately for them another HBO miniseries helmed by a Hollywood heavweight, namely Big Little Lies and David E. Kelley, arguably did this very thing earlier and to be better effect, at least in terms of the disc presentation. One of the things that Big Little Lies so brilliantly structured was the whole aspect of wondering not just “who done it” but “to whom was it done” (so to speak), with a deliberately disjunctive presentational style that approached things out of context and at times with a playful sense of chronology, two elements which Mosaic also attempts to provide, but which don’t quite achieve the same sense of shock and awe that Big Little Lies regularly mustered.

There are a number of really interesting if at times a little frustrating interviews with screenwriter Ed Solomon that I highly recommend the enterprising Googler check out if they have already experienced the app version of Mosaic, or are at least interested in this “new, improved” way of rolling out a mystery offering. One of the unexpected nuggets Solomon gets into is how the app is actually arguably the more “complete” way to watch the show, in that not only are there innumerable little nooks and crannies to explore that offer more abundant backstory and overall information, the app version evidently (I frankly haven’t seen it) provides a more “conclusive” conclusion as to what actually happened. In fact, the “linear” version (as Solomon and others call the HBO broadcast iteration) leaves a number of questions unanswered, and some viewers may come away feeling a decided lack of a cathartic solution in terms of the “whodunit” aspect.

The timeline is played with from virtually the get go, with the first of several “where/when are we?” explicatory title cards superimposed on the imagery letting us know it’s “right now” in (fictional) Summit, Utah. A seeming confession to a murder obviously points the finger rather decisively at one particular suspect, at which point the story segues back a few years to introduce the main character (and ultimate victim), children’s book author Olivia Lake (Sharon Stone). Lake has become famous for a bestselling kiddie tome which tells the story of a marauding bear from both a human and bear perspective, kind of Rashomon style. That particular aspect probably had more of a “meta” meaning in the “choose your path/point of view” world of the app than it does in the “linear” television version.

It actually takes a while for the show to turn into a “real” murder mystery, with the opening two episodes given over largely to establishing Olivia’s tony lifestyle in the mountains of Utah, a lifestyle which may be something of an illusion. The cast is filled with a coterie of potential suspects once there’s a victim, including Joel Hurley (Garrett Hedlund), an artist who lives on Olivia’s expansive acreage, and Eric Neill (Frederick Weller), a “boy toy” who may also be something of a grifter. But there’s also a duplicitous lawman (Beau Bridges), an entrepreneurial neighbor (James Ransome) who has his eyes on at least Olivia’s property if not Olivia herself, that guy's scheming aide (Michael Cerveris), and (just for good measure) a seemingly sweet assistant (Paul Reubens) who may have some ulterior motives of his own.

I’m frankly not quite sure what didn’t totally click for me with Mosaic, but I was left kind of weirdly uninterested in the shenanigans of these and a handful of other characters who drift in and out of the tale. Energy does pick up as the miniseries moves along, especially once Eric’s sister Petra (Jennifer Ferrin) shows up and begins investigating herself for her own personal reasons. The miniseries offers some really good and nuanced performances, especially by Stone, but the show in this form tends to lurch forward in fits and starts, instead of (forgive me my sins) seamlessly branching into something more viscerally exciting.

Mosaic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mosaic is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Mosaic is a bit of a challenge to assess in this particular form, since it seems at least some of what is being viewed has been shot and/or framed with phone screens in mind. As can readily be seen in many of the screenshots accompanying this review, the miniseries tends to ping pong between cool blue grading and a more warm, buttery yellow, look. Detail levels are therefore perhaps more widely variant than are typically seen in "regular" television productions, with fine detail often falling by the wayside due to both grading issues and a tendency toward boosted highlights, something that can tend to create glowing backgrounds (see screenshots 5 and 7). The look of the miniseries tends to become more natural in later episodes (see screenshot 13), and in these moments detail levels perk up considerably and the palette maintains a more organic appearance. Despite stylistic peculiarities arguably fostered by the necessities of the app version, generally speaking this is a nice looking and reasonably well detailed presentation that also has no overt compression anomalies of any note.

Mosaic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mosaic's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers substantial immersion in some "busier" moments like the big party that introduces Olivia early in the miniseries, but this is a pretty relentlessly talky enterprise that tends to derive most of its surround activity from ambient environmental effects. The good news in that regard is that large swaths of the piece take place outside, where such effects are allowed to populate the surround channels. Fidelity is fine throughout, delivering all dialogue without any problems whatsoever.

Mosaic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Episode 2: Heart of Homicide Part I (1080i; 6:09) is kind of a send up of Forensic Files type shows, with an "investigation" into the murder and comments from the likes of Neil Gaiman on how much Olivia supposedly influenced him.

Disc Two

• Episode 6: Heart of Homicide Part II (1080i; 14:37) continues the "investigation", with even more commentary by Gaiman.

Mosaic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mosaic is a fascinating idea, but I just think Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon may have made a mistake by rejiggering things for a more "normal" presentational style for this HBO version. Part of the fun of the app, at least according to what I read about it, was the ability to poke around and find things out for yourself, as well as to revisit certain aspects from different characters' points of view. That's all pretty much missing here, which leaves viewers to ferret out clues in a somewhat lackluster mystery setting. Nonetheless, performances are quite winning, and some of the locations sumptuously beautiful. Technical merits are solid (with an understanding that the production constraints of the app version certainly play into how this version looks), and with caveats duly noted, Mosaic comes Recommended.