Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie Review

American Horror Story.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 1, 2019

Thomas Wolfe famously gave the world one of its best remembered adages with the title of his novel You Can't Go Home Again, though that title is probably best understood as a metaphor, since many people will understandably state that, yes, you can go home again, though you arguably perhaps shouldn't. That understanding is part and parcel of the intermittently interesting Mountain Rest, a film which posits American Horror Story's Frances Conroy as an aging actress named Ethel who attempts to reunite with her estranged daughter Frankie (Kate Lyn Sheil) while also getting to know her granddaughter Clara (Natalia Dyer, Stranger Things).

There’s a lot that goes unspoken in Mountain Rest, despite lots of dialogue, and that perhaps deprives this story of some badly needed context. The opening suggests that Clara might have a drug problem, and indeed there seem to be threads of substance abuse running throughout the story, as evidenced by Ethel’s preference for smoking and drinking to excess, but nothing is really handled in a very overt manner. There are also unexplained or at least unexplored fractures between both sets of mother-daughter relationships. Even the sole main male character, Bascolm (Shawn Hatosy), is kind of clunkily introduced and it’s some considerable time before his real relationship in the family is clearly disclosed.

This struck me as a showcase for Conroy, perhaps in an attempt to garner her festival or even major award notice, and she certainly does create a memorable character with her take on Ethel. But despite offering three generations of women all with their own “issues”, Mountain Rest never really builds any significant momentum, and my hunch is whether or not any individual viewer wants to go to his or her home again, they may not want to spend that much time at this particular location.

Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mountain Rest is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and FilmRise with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in (the kind of old school aspect ratio of) 1.67:1. Once again the IMDb doesn't offer much in the way of technical specs, but your intrepid reviewer found this interesting article that mentions the Arri Alexa as well as getting into some of the light panels and other elements utilized in the shoot. As usual, I'm assuming everything was finished at a 2K DI. Despite this seeming to be a play for award recognition for Conroy, it's actually cinematographer Ashley Connor who has been recognized at some festivals, and the look of this film is quite beautiful, especially with regard to some of the shots of wide vistas, where detail levels are excellent and depth of field quite impressive. There's a somewhat hazy, dreamlike quality to some of the film (including some actual dream sequences, it should be noted), and as such fine detail can be somewhat variable. The palette looks natural throughout and the presentation is commendably free of any aggressive grading choices.

Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

FilmRise continues to offer Blu-rays with lossy audio only, and that's once again the case with Mountain Rest, which features Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. This is a very talky feature, and so the surround track isn't hugely different from the stereo version, though the film does boast some musical elements where the surround track offers more spaciousness and a better accounting of the low end, and ambient environmental sounds are more clearly splayed and immersive in the surround track as well. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. As I've mentioned in many other reviews of releases with only lossy audio, my score is at least partially reflective of the fact that my personal opinion is that this far into the Blu-ray era there really shouldn't be releases with only lossy audio.

Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes

  Opening Dream Sequence (1080p; 3:03)

  
  

  Lunch (1080p; 2:52)

  
  

  Swimming in the Lake (1080p; 3:59)

  
  

  Clara Visits the Barn (1080p; 4:40)

• Interviews

  Writer and Director Alex O. Eaton (1080p; 9:14)

  
  

  Natalia Dyer (1080p; 10:07)

  
  

  Kate Lyn Shiel (1080p; 4:48)

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:58)

Mountain Rest Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of the cast may well want to check Mountain Rest out, but it's a fairly glacially paced film that never builds to any real emotional catharsis. Performances are top notch all the way around, on way or the other. Video is fine, but this is another FilmRise release with only lossy audio, for those who are considering a purchase.