Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

She's the One Blu-ray Movie Review

McMullen Redux

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 11, 2012

Writer-director editor Ed Burns is a self-professed admirer of Woody Allen; so it's hardly a surprise that his second film, a romantic comedy released under the title She's the One after Burns considered and rejected various alternates, reflects Allen's influence throughout. But She's the One doesn't feel like an Allen film, in part because Burns's combative Queens-Irish sensibility couldn't be further from Allen's passive-aggressive Jewish-Manhattan aesthetic. (The East River may be geographically narrow, but spiritually it's a yawning gulf.) More importantly, though, She's the One is as much about sibling rivalry as it is about romance, and siblings are a minor light in Allen's firmament. They appear all right, but they only cast enough light to be decorative. When you watch Hannah and Her Sisters, you're not following the relationships among the sisters; you're watching the relationships between each sister and the men in her life.

Relations between the sexes are a major topic for Burns as well, but he always circles back to the unbreakable bonds of love and hate between the two brothers, Francis and Mickey Fitzpatrick, at the heart of the story. Different though they may be, they're united in being mystified by women, and it's fitting that their mother remains an unseen presence off-screen (even if the real reason is that Burns was saving money on an actress). These two guys see the world through the eyes of their gruff old man, a retired New York City firefighter whose first name no one uses, and who constantly refers to his sons as girls. Put a real woman in the mix, and all three of them are baffled.

Burns's interest in this milieu was clear from the title of his first film, The Brothers McMullen, and he portrays it with an affection that is of an entirely different order than Woody Allen's images of his New York Jewish past, which are usually parodies. At the same time, Burns is remarkably clear-eyed about the damage that such a testosterone-driven approach to life does to those who pursue it, and the serious side of She's the One examines the result of sibling rivalry taken to extremes—and stopped by the old man's intervention just in time. (Or maybe not.)

Mickey Fitzpatrick (Burns) is, as an acquaintance points out, the only white, English-speaking cabdriver left in New York City, circa 1996. It's the job Mickey chose after disappearing for a few years, then resurfacing, following the bust-up of his engagement to Heather (Cameron Diaz). Mickey ended the engagement after walking in on Heather in flagrante with another man. Now he drifts, but he says he's happy.

Mickey's father, a retired NYC fireman known only as "Mr. Fitzpatrick" (John Mahoney), thinks it's time for Mickey to do something more solid and settled. That's what he tells Mickey on weekend fishing trips in Long Island Sound with his younger brother, Francis (Mike McGlone). Francis is the family overachiever, with a lucrative job on Wall Street, a fancy loft apartment, a sharp wardrobe, a car and driver (Malachy McCourt) and a gorgeous wife named Renee (Jennifer Aniston, in her first major film role, and still one of her best).

Indeed, Francis is such an overachiever that he's already dissatisfied with the beautiful wife he married and has moved on to—you guessed it—the very same Heather who broke his brother's heart. She too works on Wall Street, and you can tell from their very first scene that Heather sized up Francis in about three seconds and has played him like a virtuoso ever since. (It's revealed early on that Heather is a former call girl.) Diaz' portrayal of a smart, sexy, ruthless career woman, who still manages to show genuine feeling beneath the surface, is one of the highlights of She's the One.

Mickey's happy life gets unsettled one day, when an art student symbolically named Hope (Maxine Bahns) hails his cab for a trip to the airport. On impulse, she asks Mickey to drive her to New Orleans instead of flying and be her date to a friend's wedding. On impulse, Mickey agrees, and they return from the trip married. Then they have to move in together and get to know each other, which isn't an easy process, especially since Hope hasn't bothered to tell Mickey she's moving to Paris in the fall to study at the Sorbonne. (She also has a possessive best friend, hilariously played by Leslie Mann, who thinks Hope is too good for Mickey.)

As if getting acquainted while being newlyweds isn't hard enough, Heather re-enters the picture, when Mickey picks her up in his cab by chance one day. They have unfinished business, and since Heather is just about done wrecking Francis' marriage, she has some time to spare. When Mickey isn't interested, Heather responds by throwing a depth charge between the Brothers Fitzpatrick (the maneuver involves some business with a watch), and the result is a short but very funny boxing match with Mr. F. as referee.

An entertaining counterpoint to the rivalry between the Fitzpatrick siblings is provided by Renee and her sister, Molly (Amanda Peet, with a great Long Island accent). Pouring out her heart about the state of her marriage to what she assumes will be a sympathetic ear, Renee is shocked to hear from Molly that an ex-boyfriend of Renee's is now divorced and back on the market—and that Molly is going after him! Renee is horrified, but Molly has the bottom line: “You think you’re the only who’s gonna marry rich? I need somebody to pick up my Bergdorf bills too, sweetheart!”

She's the One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

On his commentary track, Ed Burns praises his cinematographer, Frank Prinzi (with whom Burns would work on many subsequent films) for achieving such a professional look on a limited budget. Prinzi came from the world of shoestring independent films (e.g., Living in Oblivion), but you wouldn't know it from She's the One. It's not a blockbuster extravaganza, and by design it lacks the nostalgic sheen of Woody Allen's Manhattan, but Prinzi understands how to capture a clean, detailed, well-lit image in real locations and under tight time constraints. (It's no accident that much of his recent work has been for television.)

The image on Fox's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is smooth and film-like, with a lightly accented grain pattern and a wealth of tiny detail that registers almost subliminally, fully establishing the sharply contrasting environments in which these characters interact: the blue collar environs of the Fitzpatrick home in Brooklyn; the tenement squalor of Hope's apartment; and the glossy but cold apartments, shops and offices where Francis, Heather and Renee plot, scheme and suffer. The colors aren't overly saturated, but they're vivid. (Burns says in the commentary that the pink walls in Hope's place didn't turn out on film as he expected, but the effect is memorable.) There were no signs of high frequency filtering, artificial sharpening or other inappropriate digital manipulation, and no compression artifacts.

She's the One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While I couldn't find a definitive historical authority, it's likely that the budget for She's the One limited the original audio format to Dolby Stereo Surround. Especially given the nature of the track, which is primarily dialogue and music by Tom Petty (his first movie score), a 5.1 track would have been a waste of the production's limited funds.

When Fox released the film on DVD, the disc included a choice between a DD 2.0 surround track and DD 4.0 (left, center, right, mono suround). The latter option was not unusual on DVDs where the producers had access to the original discrete tracks used to create the matrixed mixdown.

The Blu-ray, however, has only a 2.0 track, mastered in DTS-HD MA, and Tom Petty has never sounded better. His songs, performed with his band, the Heartbreakers, in both full versions and instrumental covers, give She's the One a unique sound and added dimension, and they play beautifully on this track, spreading out into the viewing room with excellent fidelity. Dialogue is clear and well-recorded, and though Burns repeatedly points out scenes in the film that had to be looped because of ambient noise, none of them stands out in the finished mix. This is not only a serviceable track, but also an entertaining one, which, for a film that's primarily about people talking, is no small achievement.

She's the One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The special features have been ported over from the 2000 DVD. (Note that, although the DVD jacket listed "TV Spots", only the theatrical trailer appeared on the disc.)

• Commentary by Writer-Director-Actor Edward Burns: Burns frequently pauses to watch the film, but he always gets started again, as if he still remembers the days when he was a struggling filmmaker hungry to hear insights from commentaries. He's informative on the difference between making his first film for $25,000 and this film for $3 million, and his stories of how the film came to be made, with major support from executive producer Robert Redford, are themselves enough to make the commentary worthwhile. Burns wrote the film's script during the months he was shopping McMullen to festivals and distributors, so that he'd having something "in the drawer" in case anyone asked. (Future writer-directors take note.) Burns also offers practical advice for directors on a budget (cut out all driving shots, night shots and shots on the water), and describes some of the script elements he'd write differently today (like making Mickey a cab driver, which even in 1996 strained credibility).


• Featurette (SD; 1.33:1; 8:09): This brief EPK is entertaining for what it offers, including interviews with Diaz, Aniston, McGlone, Mahoney, Bahns and Burns.


• Music Video: "Walls" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (SD; 1.33:1; 5:46): "Walls" is a terrific song, but the video, for my money, is only so-so, and the video quality is poor even for standard definition.


• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1.33:1; 2:37): "From the director of The Brothers McMullen . . . comes a comedy about two brothers . . . their relationship . . . and one very awkward situation."


• Booklet: A glossy insert containing extended versions of what on DVD used to be called "production notes" and "cast bios". This one also contains production and publicity photos and bears a facsimile of Burns's signature on the cover.

She's the One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Brothers McMullen made Ed Burns famous, but She's the One has always been my personal favorite among his films to date. Something about the era, the story, the subject and the casting coalesced into a near-perfect whole, even if the film stretches credibility at points, as all films do. (My daily life frequently does as well.) Fox's Blu-ray doesn't add any new extras, but it gives the film's audio and video a respectable treatment that allows its virtues to shine at their best. Highly recommended.