Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Nobody's Fool Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 20, 2023

Robert Benton's "Nobody's Fool" (1994) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include new program with actress Catherine Dent; new program with writer Richard Russo; new audio commentary recorded by filmmaker and critic Jim Hemphill; and vintage trailer for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

If you see Robert Benton’s film Nobody’s Fool ten years from now, you will discover a lot that somehow you missed during your first experience with it. If you wait ten more years and revisit it again, you will discover plenty more that somehow you missed during your previous experience with it. How do I know that you did not already get everything Nobody’s Fool has to offer? You are going to have to trust me on this. And if you do not, well, set your timer, start counting the days, and ten years from now see whether what I have written above is true.

It has been nearly thirty years since Benton directed Nobody’s Fool and during this period I must have seen it four or five times. I have always liked it, but not enough to declare that Paul Newman’s best work is in it. Newman is really good as the aging, slightly eccentric loner Sully, but he has done better characters in some truly special films. However, they are different characters too, so I am unsure if it is fair to rank them. In his prime, Newman was quite simply a very different actor.

A few nights ago, I viewed Nobody’s Fool again and what surprised me quite a lot is how much I liked the secondary characters around Sully. In past viewings of Nobody’s Fool I never ignored them and their significance -- Jessica Tandy’s Miss Beryl, for instance, quite simply cannot be ignored -- but I saw them from a different angle, one that pretty much always had me focusing on Sully’s antics. My latest viewing of Nobody’s Fool changed that and did it in a rather dramatic way. In fact, it was so dramatic that it forced me to reconsider my interpretation of the entire film and even the meaning of its title.

Before I explain why I would like to refresh your memory with a quick summation of the main activities in Nobody’s Fool. In the small town of North Bath, New York, Sully shares a home with Miss Beryl. They are not a couple but live as if they are. He rents a room on the second floor; she lives on the first floor and keeps trying to get him to have a cup of tea with her. Each day they argue about something silly, but it is their way of reminding each other that there is a very, very special bond between them. Sully loves to argue with Carl Roebuck (Bruce Willis) too, but it is because they have a friendly rivalry. Carl runs a small construction company and owes him money, plus he is having problems with his beautiful wife Toby (Melanie Griffith), who has had enough of him and is seriously considering leaving him. Sully never misses an opportunity to suggest that despite his age he could be the right guy to run away with Toby and make her happy again. When Sully’s son, Peter (Dylan Walsh) unexpectedly appears in town with his family, he too becomes a target in his father’s favorite daily activity, though when they argue it is usually because they simply remember differently the evolution of their broken relationship. Sully’s least favorite debater is the town’s lousiest cop, Raymer (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who also hates him and never misses a good opportunity to hand him a ticket.

Benton very quickly establishes Sully as a colorful relic that the town quite simply cannot function without. Sully’s mere presence charges the town with a special energy that seems to keep it alive. This is what transforms Nobody’s Fool into a very charming film with a huge heart.

What I discovered during my latest viewing of Nobody’s Fool is that virtually everyone that feeds off Sully’s special energy has a very realistic take on their existence. The big splashes of humor tend to overshadow this theme of the narrative quite well, but if you adjust your viewing angle a bit you will easily recognize it. When Sully engages the people around him there is always some reaction revealing their awareness of the passage of time, their time, and that eventually, it is all going to end. This awareness, for instance, is what solidifies Toby’s decision to leave, and forces Peter to hit the reset button and reconsider his preferred path in life.

I am sure that someone will argue that this is what happens when you choose to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere -- you become comfortable existing rather than living and one day you discover that you have run out of time. But this simply is not true. It takes a very special person for this awareness to materialize and in Nobody’s Fool this person is Sully.

Is this what the title of the film was meant to reveal? At some point, we all become aware of the passage of the time that has been given to us. I do not know, but right now this message makes perfect sense to me.

Nobody's Fool Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Nobody's Fool arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The comments below were initially used in our review of the 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray release of Nobody's Fool. They are reposted here because they address the native 4K and 1080p presentations of the new 4K makeover of the film.

I found the technical presentation incredibly frustrating. Why? It is immediately obvious that the 4K files that were prepared at Paramount are of exceptionally high quality. Density levels, clarity, and stability are as good as you would expect from a proper new 4K makeover. I like absolutely everything that I saw. Unfortunately, this is yet another 4K makeover with a color grade that is seriously disappointing. Strangely, the bad in it is very inconsistent too, so in certain areas, it looks like someone might have done successful corrections. I am not convinced this is what happened, but I mention it so that you can understand how random some of the inconsistencies are. For example, in various areas, the whites are destabilized with cyan. Some of the spikes are very harsh, but some are not and tend to affect other primaries, like blues and greens. Together, these changes create numerous anomalies in the overall temperature of the visuals. For example, in screencapture #21 the harsh cyan collapses plenty of existing detail. In screencapture #24, which is taken from an older release of the film, you can see how the whites are preserved, not dialed out. In screencapture #6, you can see how the cyan produces changes in the color temperature as well. In other areas, however, the visuals can gravitate quite close to where they need to be, especially if there is very little white with minimal blue. I found these shifts very distracting in native 4K and 1080p. Does the HDR grade change anything? No. In fact, it was even easier for me to tell that in many areas throughout the film some preset color values are incorrect. (Watch closely how Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy's hair routinely trade their gray for light cyan. Proper color values would have preserved the gray, but altered its nuances according to how light impacts them). Grain exposure is outstanding. There are no stability issues. My score is 3.75/5.00.

Nobody's Fool Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I viewed the entire film with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. I thought that clarity, sharpness, depth, and stability were outstanding. The film has a good soundtrack that produces some gentle but very effective dynamic contrasts as well. I did not encounter any encoding anomalies to report in our review.

Nobody's Fool Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by filmmaker and critic Jim Hemphill. There is a lot of interesting information about the shooting of Nobody's Fool in different locations throughout New York state, the decision to shoot different parts of the film in out-of-sequence, Robert Benton's direction, Paul Newman's involvement with the project (as well as particular comments he made about it), the visuals style and tone of the film, etc. It is a very, very good commentary.

• "Nobody's Fool" - in this exclusive new program, actress Catherine Dent recalls how she became involved with Nobody's Fool and what it was like to work with Paul Newman (which her family apparently adored), and discusses Robert Benton's working methods and her character's choices/decisions. The program was created by Via Vision Entertainment. In English, not subtitled. (16 min).

• "The Origins of Nobody's Fool" - in this exclusive new program, writer Richard Russo explains how his novel came to exist and how his father shaped its identity. Mr. Russo also mentions the sequel to "Nobody's Fool", "Everybody's Fool", and how he used it to revisit his very special relationship with his father, and how Paul Newman had completely taken over its main character after he became Sully. The program was created by Via Vision Entertainment. In English, not subtitled. (23 min).

• Trailer - a vintage U.S. trailer for Nobody's Fool. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

Nobody's Fool Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Different areas of the new 4K makeover of Nobody's Fool can look quite good, so I assume that a lot of people would be happy with it. However, it reveals obvious grading issues that easily could have been avoided, so I found it seriously frustrating. Regrettably, it does not matter whether you choose to view Nobody's Fool in native 4K or 1080p. (A 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray release is reviewed here). If you have previous experience with the film and know how it should look, you will easily spot the grading issues. If you must have this Blu-ray release in your collection, I suggest you wait and pick it up when it goes on sale.