Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

On the Rocks Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 18, 2021

There's an arguably slight lapse in emotional logic underpinning On the Rocks, though the story does eventually get around to dealing with it. Laura Keane (Rashida Jones) is a young woman who seems to have it all: a successful career as a writer, a dashing husband named Dean (Marlon Wayans), and two adorable daughters. For reasons which are perhaps understandable but are still a little on the questionable side, Laura begins to suspect that Dean may be cheating on her, and she reaches out to her father Felix (Bill Murray) for support. And it's in this structural linchpin that On the Rocks may strain credulity more than just a bit, since it's clear almost from the get go that Felix has a somewhat wavering moral compass and, it turns out, had cheated on Laura's mother back in the day, which would seem to suggest that Laura probably might have found a better source of advice elsewhere. If there's therefore a perhaps niggling disconnect between an implied family history and the way an adult child reacts to a parent due to that history, it's to On the Rocks' credit that the fractious relationship between the father and daughter is generally believable, brought to life by Sofia Coppola's appealing screenplay and some wonderfully lived in performances by the star duo.

Are you a nervous flyer? If so, you might immediately feel empathy for the character of Dean, who due to his entrepreneurial ways is forced to travel quite a bit (something that plays into Laura's fears about him cheating), and who returns home to her after a flight where he's taken Xanax to calm his nerves. He seems a bit wobbly and woozy as he stumbles into their bedroom late one night, and then begins to make out with a half asleep Laura. When she wakes a bit and actually speaks, it seems to snap Dean out of some kind of drugged reverie, and he appears to be actually shocked that he's evidently starting to make a move on his own wife, rolling over and collapsing and leaving Laura concerned and confused.

When Laura later finds a woman's toiletry bag tucked into Dean's luggage, her suspicions grow exponentially, and when she's introduced to Dean's unbelievably beautiful co-worker Fiona Saunders (Jessica Fenwick) at a company party, her emotions are understandably roiled. Interestingly in this regard, and in what is perhaps a sign that the marriage between Dean and Laura may be on firmer ground than Laura thinks, she brings up her discovery to Dean, who responds quickly and seemingly naturally that the bag belongs to Fiona, but that she couldn't fit it in her own luggage on the way home and Dean agreed to pack it in his. Sounds semi-believable, right?

With those puzzle pieces in place, and with echoes of some opening voiceover that starts the film where Felix informs a presumed very young Laura that she'll always be "his", even after she gets married, Laura reaches out to Felix for advice. Felix wastes no time in informing his troubled daughter that, yes, she has every right to be suspicious, and that in fact chances are almost certain that Dean is in fact cheating on her, since in Felix's estimation, men are almost genetically programmed to dally. That then propels the film into what almost amounts to "caper" made, with Felix and Laura tailing Dean on a number of his travels, including around Manhattan and, ultimately, to a Mexican resort.

In a very real way, the entire narrative of On the Rocks is the very essence of a shaggy dog story, since unsurprisingly Felix's views on the war between the sexes are not just antiquated, but kind of hopelessly disconnected from the modern state of relationships. That makes the film's denouement not especially unexpected, and in fact kind of sweetly uplifting in its own way, but it does tend to deprive the story of underlying meaning, at least if considered in hindsight. What ends up working beautifully here despite some outright conceits in the setup are the fun and ingratiating performances from Murray, here pretty much revisiting at least some well worn elements from some of his other characterizations, including his one for Coppola in Lost in Translation, and Jones, who manages to infuse a semblance of authenticity into a character who almost simultaneously is exasperated by and under the sway of her father.

On the Rocks Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

On the Rocks is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Coppola and cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd opted for good, old fashioned film (Kodak stock is listed in the film's closing credits roll), and the IMDb states that a 4K DI was prepared. The results are nicely organic looking for the most part in high definition, though I personally found some of the grain resolution to be just a little swarm like at times (look, for example, at screenshots 18 and 19, where there's a kind of fuzziness on display). The palette tends to be pretty tamped down a lot of the time until everyone ventures to sunnier climes, at which point it begins popping considerably more, with one especially evocative sequence where Jones is wearing a yellow dress and the production design emphasizes purples in the background. Detail levels are also generally effectively precise looking throughout the presentation. There are quite a few nighttime scenes and/or dimly lit interior scenes, and some may pine for a bit more shadow definition at times.

On the Rocks Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

On the Rocks features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which may not be overly "showy", but which nonetheless provides consistent activity in the surround channels, courtesy of both a wealth of ambient environmental sounds in both urban and more rustic (if exotic) environments, as well as the fun score by Phoenix and attendant source cues from a variety of jazz types. Some of the outdoor material set next to the ocean benefits from appropriate washes of sound panning through the surround channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.

On the Rocks Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there is a menu item touting Bonus Features on this disc, it turns out to offer only trailers for other releases from A24 and/or Lionsgate. I don't consider marketing items like trailers for other releases to be "scorable", hence the lack of a score above. Perhaps surprisingly, Lionsgate has not included a digital copy with this release, but packaging does feature a slipcover.

On the Rocks Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some sidebars to the main story, like Felix's penchant toward "lounge lizard" singing, seem contrived only to take advantage of some of Bill Murray's strengths (?) or at least preferences, and the main story itself may not exactly ring true at a fundamental level despite a screenplay that does attempt to deal with long festering "issues" in the dysfunctional family category. All of that said, On the Rocks is still rather surprisingly breezy and bright, and both Murray and Jones are a delight. Technical merits are generally solid, and On the Rocks comes Recommended.