5.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
An uptight NYC lawyer takes her two teenagers to her hippie mother's farmhouse upstate for a family vacation.
Starring: Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Olsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chace CrawfordComedy | 100% |
Drama | 43% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
If Peace, Love & Misunderstanding were a car, it'd be a rusted, spray-painted VW Bug. If it were an article of clothing, it'd be a droopy tie-dyed t-shirt that smells strongly of B.O. and patchouli and cannabis. If it were a band, it'd be The Band. And if it were any more obvious in it's aging-hippy cliches and affectations, it'd be nigh unwatchable. Directed by Bruce Beresford—the sentimentalism-prone Australian filmmaker behind Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy—this drama-comedy is a dippy multi-generational melange about family and forgiveness and the moral/emotional disconnect between parents and their children. In what would seem to be a casting stroke of genius, Jane Fonda—making an exceedingly rare movie appearance—plays a once-a-hippy-always-a-hippy grandma who lives on a farm in Woodstock, N.Y., sells pot on the side, and throws "full moon parties" with her New Age-y female friends. The problem here is that the part—and indeed everything about the film—is written with such a lack of subtlety that it veers into unintentional self-parody within the first ten minutes. From the punned-up title to the sappy conclusion, Peace, Love & Misunderstanding is about as authentic as a bag of oregano passed off for weed.
Grandma doing her thing.
It's all groovy for Peace, Love & Misunderstanding on Blu-ray, where the film features a 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation that's generally sharp, colorful, and free from distractions. Shot digitally using Red One cameras, the film has a clean and nearly noiseless look—without having to rely on DNR or edge enhancement—and source noise remains tempered even during the darkest scenes. (From a normal viewing distance, it's rarely ever visible.) The picture has fleeting moments of softness, but clarity is excellent overall, allowing closeups to reveal fine facial textures and clothing details. Cinematography-wise, the film screams "indie rom-com," with a bright, cheery and arguably over-lit palette, but color is dense and decently graded. There are occasional instances where the exposure blows out highlights a bit, but contrast is mostly even-handed, resting on a base of sufficiently deep blacks. And while the film has been placed on a 25 GB, single-layer disc, it seems to have plenty of room; there are no blatant compression/encode issues to report.
Expect a low-key but functional listening experience from Peace, Love & Misunderstanding's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. Considering this is a mostly quiet family drama, the dialogue is the focus here, and it's always well-recorded, nicely balanced in the mix, in easy to understand. Everything else is just window dressing—and there's not much of it. The rear channels aren't used all too often in this front-heavy mix, but you will hear some quiet ambience on occasion—small town street sounds, wind, birds, insect, and other natural noises. I can't recall any distinct cross- channel movements or effects though; everything stays grounded and simple. The "lively piano music" of the score—as the subtitle track describes it—is adequately full and clear, and the incidental tunes sound decent too, although Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Catherine Keener's rendition of "The Weight" is as un-heavy as it gets. The disc includes English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in fluorescent yellow lettering.
Peace, Love & Misunderstanding's supplements are decidedly slim, limited to the blandly named Featurette (HD, 2:51), which includes snippets of an interview with director Bruce Beresford, along with the film's theatrical trailer (HD, 2:32).
Like the hippy era itself, Peace, Love & Misunderstanding is well-intentioned but also hopelessly naive and a bit too cornball in its fringe, free- spirited excesses. The stereotypes and cliches abound here, inspiring more eye-rolling and exasperation than insight or laughs. And although casting Jane Fonda as an aging hippy makes perfect sense, the film simply doesn't handle its subject matter—strained inter-generational relationships—with any degree of authenticity. This, combined with the fact that the Blu-ray is short on substantive special features, lead me to suggest, at most, a rental. For a better, more serious take on the subject—one also starring Catherine Keener—try The Ballad of Jack and Rose instead.
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