My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie Review

Where are Crosby and Hope when you really need them?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 25, 2011

It's tempting to saddle My Own Love Song with the nickname The Road to Tedium, except that the film is so well meaning and tries so desperately to give us a Hallmark card feel-good ending that it somehow seems unfair. This update on the old fashioned "road movie" is filled to the brim with good intentions, and yet it's still a halting and stumbling affair, full of mannered performances, a hackneyed screenplay, a number of unanswered questions and a too pat denouement to make it anything much more than, well, a Hallmark made for television movie. Renée Zellwegger plays former bigtime country singer Jane Wyatt (Jane Wyatt???), whose career took a nosedive after a horrific accident left her paralyzed, her husband dead, and her baby put up for adoption. Forest Whitaker is Jane’s best friend (no, not Robert Young), Joey, a mentally deficient man who believes he can talk to spirits. Are your heartstrings hanging by their veritable frayed threads yet? Well, hold on, because over the next hour and a half, you’ll witness Jane and Joey, as well as a number of other walking wounded, find out that happiness is just around the corner. No, not that corner. That corner.

My Own Love Song was the brainchild of French filmmaker Olivier Dahan, whose La Vie En Rose caused quite a stir a few years ago and earned star Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Academy Award for her commanding performance as French national icon and chanteuse Edith Piaf. La Vie En Rose proved that Dahan was a more than competent filmmaker, if it also revealed him to be strangely old fashioned and not above injecting his work with ample amounts of saccharine. Those same proclivities are in evidence throughout My Own Love Song, except that Dahan inexplicably goes for at least a few (neo)-modern techniques like split screens and whirling tracking shots that may leave some viewers reaching for the Dramamine. But the treacly aspects that were part and parcel of La Vie En Rose are perhaps even more accentuated in My Own Love Song, and they make for a sticky, syrupy sweet ride with these characters.

This is a film that features such hapless characters in such desperate straits that traveling with them becomes something of a chore. Joey wants to visit his favorite author, an “expert” on angels, but in the meantime he also comes across an unopened invitation in Jane’s house from her now young boy, who wants his birth mother to come to his first communion. Jane is obviously in denial, not willing to even open an invitation from the child she felt she had to give up for adoption after her horrendous accident. Joey’s ulterior motive is to get Jane to a reunion with her child. This being a patently heartstring-tugging outing, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the pair, soon joined by a third hapless individual, Billie (Madeline Zima), a woman estranged from her husband, will have their fair share of hard knocks and then, against all odds, they’ll prevail. It’s all so pat and predictable that it makes My Own True Love a rather hard slog at tiimes. The film also wants to have its dramatic cake and eat its occasional comedy bits, too, making for some very odd tonal juxtapositions that undercut the emotional turmoil that Jane and Joey are supposedly experiencing. There's nothing very funny about either of these characters, and trying to evoke a few laughs along the way to lighten the load seems ill conceived.

Zellwegger has always been hobbled by her somewhat peculiar countenance, which often makes it look like the actress is attempting (unsuccessfully) to pass a kidney stone or several. That squinty, sour look actually melds fairly well with her character Jane’s emotional turmoil, and her performance at least does not reach the histrionic heights of Whitaker or the almost scary cameo by Nick Nolte, looking much like his infamous mug shot of a few years ago. Whitaker is especially out of his element here, offering a tic-filled, largely inept portrayal that may leave some fans wondering what’s happened to an actor who not that long ago walked away with an Oscar for Best Actor.

While the film is undeniably hackneyed and predictable, it also must be admitted that it has an equally undeniable good heart. There will be few dry eyes by the time Jane is able to look at her son for the first time in years, and there are a few other three-hankie moments scattered throughout the film. A song score and underscore by Bob Dylan help to set an appropriately melancholy mood, and one of the real revelations of this film is just how accomplished a vocalist Zellwegger is, in two incredible performances. It would be fantastic to have her co-star with Meryl Streep, another wonderful singer who just happens to be a great actress, in some sort of outing where their singing talents could be exploited.

Dahan also invests the film with a certain poetic quality that helps it overcome some of its cliché-ridden roots. Unexpectedly languishing shots of amber lit hillsides or party balloons glinting in the sun maintain a slightly dreamlike quality that contrasts nicely with the harsh realities on display in these characters’ wounded lives. Unfortunately poetry can only take you so far on a long trip, and that’s where My Own Love Song gets into some trouble.

My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My Own Love Song's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 looks really gorgeous a lot of the time, at least if you don't mind an intentionally soft, gauzy look and some purposefully boosted contrast and color filtering. Dahan plays very subtly with tone and hue throughout the film, and those subtle gradations are caught quite well on this release. Light is especially important throughout the film, and the Blu-ray offers some really pretty shades of illumination. Some of the filtered elements are also quite evocative and help to cast a dreamlike, if also sad, tenor on the story. Fine detail is excellent in many close-ups, but a lot of the midrange shots are fuzzy to the point of being almost surreal, probably intentionally so. Black levels are very good, and contrast, though occasionally boosted, is also solid.

My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

What a shame that My Own Love Song doesn't feature lossless audio, especially considering its evocative song score by Bob Dylan. Instead a respectable if not exactly overwhelming standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is the only option (in English and French). This lossy track does fine as far as it goes, but I just couldn't help but wonder what the musical elements at least would have sounded like in a lossless format. Complaints aside, the DD 5.1 track has some decent immersion, especially once the "road" elements get underway, with well placed ambient environmental effects scattered throughout the soundfield. Fidelity is strong, and dialogue is always crisp and clear. The underscore sounds great, but, again, a lossless audio option would have given everything that added "oomph" that could have helped to really make this film come alive aurally.

My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• My Own Love Song Behind the Scenes (HD; 8:08) is given the generic title "Featurette" on the Main Menu, and that is exactly what this brief supplement is: generic. Dahan and his stars sit and congratulate themselves on doing brilliant work and how their collaborators are all geniuses.
• Trailer

My Own Love Song Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I really wanted to like My Own Love Song, and was in fact excited to watch it after having read a little bit about it before its arrival. Unfortunately, anticipation was pretty quickly deflated by this film's predictability and overly sentimental story. Dahan is one of the most curiously old fashioned French directors out there right now, someone who seems to want to harken back the Golden Age of Hollywood as much as any of his own nation's iconic contributions to the history of film. What Dahan seems to harken back to here is more like the Golden Age of the Hallmark made for television movie, complete with teary-eyed finale of the stars holding hands and virtually singing "Kum Bah Yah." There is some gorgeous imagery here, and Zellwegger is game, but Whitaker is almost embarrassingly bad as the believer in angels. If you need a good cry, this might be a suitable rental.