Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Return to Sender Blu-ray Movie Review

Address Too Well Known

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 30, 2015

It's not hard to imagine why an actress of Rosamund Pike's caliber was attracted to Return to Sender, the ugly little thriller released on Blu-ray in September as a Best Buy exclusive after a short theatrical run and now being distributed generally. Pike's character is the kind that challenges a talented actor, because she's required to play multiple emotions simultaneously, juggling contradictory elements with sufficient dexterity that the character remains a blur to the audience while still holding their interest. Pike pulled off a similar challenge with aplomb in 2014's Gone Girl, scoring an Oscar nomination in the process, but she had the advantages of sharing screen time with a partner and disappearing from the film for a long stretch. In Return to Sender, she remains front and center throughout.

Unfortunately, while Return to Sender's central character is intriguing, and Pike's performance is the best thing in the film, the story itself is a frustrating letdown. To explain why, and even to describe what kind of film it is, requires revealing several developments that many readers would consider spoilers. Rather than debate the point, I will simply give fair warning (and repeat it after the first screenshot). Anyone who doesn't want to know why I am recommending they avoid this film should skip to the technical sections.

For readers who missed it at the end of the introduction, the following discussion reveals plot points that many would consider spoilers. The only consolation is that these are "twists" that the alert viewer will see coming from miles away, so that, by the time they arrive, you not only won't be surprised, but you'll probably also be long past caring—and if not, you will be disappointed at the rushed execution by director Fouad Mikati (making his second feature film).

Miranda Wells (Pike) is an intensely motivated rising star among the nurses in the critical care unit at a hospital in an unnamed small town. In her off hours, she bakes picture-perfect deserts suitable for a gourmet magazine ("It's just something I do") and occasionally visits her aging father, Mitchell (Nick Nolte), whose dog, Benny, doesn't like her. Seeking a new challenge, Miranda has requested a transfer to the surgical unit, where the pressure is even greater. Expecting the promotion, she submits a bid on a beautiful new home with a spectacular kitchen, to the delight of her real estate broker, Judy (Illeana Douglas, whose casting can't have been an accident, given her best-known role in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear).

What's missing from Miranda's life, at least according to her best friend at work, Nancy (Camryn Mannheim, who is wasted in the part), is male companionship. After months of besieging, Nancy finally persuades Miranda to agree to a blind date with Gary (Ian Barford), but a tragic case of mistaken identity occurs when someone else appears at Miranda's door that day. Mistaking him for her date, Miranda invites him in, but in fact he's a stalker named William Finn (Shiloh Fernandez). The violent attack that ensues transforms Miranda's life. Even though Finn is captured and sent to prison, all her planned hopes and dreams collapse.

The film's title comes from the message stamped by the post office on the letters Miranda begins writing in secret to her attacker in prison. The script by Patricia Beauchamp (her first to be made) and Joe Gossett (his second, after Catch Hell, a vehicle for Ryan Phillippe, who has a cameo here) asks viewers to believe that Miranda has taken the extraordinary course of contacting her attacker as a route to healing, but it's obvious from the outset that something else is afoot. "I don't know you", says her father, when he discovers what she's been up to, but we've seen enough of Miranda's OCD behavior to know that she's been keeping a side of herself tightly under wraps. Director Mikati tries to build tension as Miranda wears down Finn's resistance, begins visiting him in prison, establishes a relationship and awaits his parole, but it's so obvious where all this is leading that the film is just marking time. When Miranda's true purpose is finally revealed, it feels like something that's already happened, and Mikati races to the closing credits without further ado.

Tales of psychopathic killers have been a movie staple at least since Psycho, but in recent years a curious subgenre has emerged in which the psychopath is the person righting the world's wrongs, a kind of mutation of the vigilante. The victims are typically self-confident creeps who target someone with a mild-mannered exterior, only to discover, when it's too late, that they've picked the wrong victim—that the placid manner that made the victim seem such easy prey is merely camouflage for a monster far more dangerous than the attacker. That scenario played out repeatedly with the title character of the ingenious Showtime series Dexter, and it was also the dramatic engine of the divisive thriller Hard Candy, which jump-started Ellen Page's career.

But both Dexter and Hard Candy understood that drama requires conflict, and that a protagonist needs to be genuinely at risk to win over an audience. In Return to Sender, by contrast, there's neither risk nor any kind of battle of wills after the initial attack that sets Miranda on her unstoppable path toward the film's conclusion. Deprived of the element of surprise, her opponent is too stupid and too easily manipulated to be any match for her. Indeed, one of the most sickening aspects of Return to Sender is that, inadvertently or not, it ends up asking us to feel sorry for the rapist.

Return to Sender Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Whatever its failings as a film, Return to Sender certainly looks handsome, thanks to cinematography by Russell Carpenter, the Oscar-winning DP of Titanic and, most recently, Ant-Man. Specific information about the shooting format was not available, but the photography appears to be digital. Image Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray features a clean, sharp and well-defined image that establishes an interesting contrast between the sterile environments Miranda seems to prefer (e.g., the hospital corridors where she works or the shiny white-and-steel kitchen in the home she hopes to buy) and the warmer environments where people like her father tend to be found. The subliminal effect of the shifting color palettes is to emphasize the consistent rigidity with which Miranda moves through the world, unaffected by her environment, always wearing the same mask (though it slips somewhat after she's been traumatized). The lighting and production design emphasize realism, presumably to enhance the believability of a story that grows increasingly less credible. The Blu-ray image is up to the challenge, whether it's reproducing the minute detail of Miranda's culinary artistry or the bruises on her face as she is being examined in the hospital after her attack.

With no extras to take up space, Image has mastered Return to Sender with an average bitrate of 25.99 Mbps, and the compression has been capably performed.

Return to Sender Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Return to Sender's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in DTS-HD MA, features a distinctive sense of environmental presence in such varying locales as the hospital room and corridors, restaurants where Miranda gathers with her co-workers, the prison where William Finn is confined, Mitchell's hardware store and various outdoor locations. A few distinctive sound effects register forcefully, e.g., the repeated shutter and flash of the photographer documenting Miranda's injuries, but otherwise Return to Sender's soundtrack is a restrained affair, where even the violence happens quietly. Much of the film's emotional punch (to the extent it has any) is carried by the musical score composed by Daniel Hart (Ain't Them Bodies Saints).

Return to Sender Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc has no extras, not even a trailer. At startup, it plays trailers for Devil's Knot and Blood, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Return to Sender Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite solid work from Pike, Nolte, Mannheim and (in her few scenes) Douglas, Return to Sender fails at every conceivable level: in dramatic terms, as pulp entertainment, as a revenge fantasy, or as a morality tale. Even as a trashy indulgence, it isn't worth your time, because you're more likely to be checking your watch halfway through. Skip it.