6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Set in the south of the United States just after the Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband Jack, believed killed in the Civil War. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter.
Starring: Richard Gere, Jodie Foster, Bill Pullman, James Earl Jones, William WindomRomance | 100% |
Period | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
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 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Italian: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Portuguese: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian SDH, Korean
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Sommersby is a loose adaptation of the 1982 French film The Return of Martin Guerre, which dramatized a bizarre but true incident from the 16th Century that could fairly be described as the first recorded case of identity theft. Nicholar Meyer, whose work as writer-director includes Time After Time and several of the better Star Trek films, changed the story enough that Warner Bros. was able to convince themselves that they didn't need to buy the remake rights. But when Meyer left the project after the studio refused to let him direct it, replacement screenwriter Sarah Kernochan insisted that no amount of change could disguise the tale's origin. Warner Bros. eventually paid for the rights and acknowledged Martin Guerre in the credits. Sommersby is especially notable for the surprisingly strong chemistry between co-stars Richard Gere and Jodi Foster, who share many intense scenes as the married couple (or possibly not) at the center of events. Casually and as if by chance (but really by design), director John Amiel (Copycat) fills out the frame with sketches of the rural South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Perhaps because Amiel is British, he is able to view this history with a humane detachment that lets him give an even-handed portrayal of the suffering all around. Sommersby plays its drama against a landscape wrecked by battle and occupation, where everyone has lost friends and family, and no one sees prosperity in their future. The last thing these people need is uncertainty over the identity of the one man who seems to have an idea about how to improve the community's fortunes.
The teal-and-orange fetishists will find nothing to complain about here. Sommersby is a symphony of earth tones delicately composed by production designer Bruno Rubeo (Driving Miss Daisy) and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, who won an Oscar in the year of Sommersby's release for A River Runs Through It. Rousselot is a soulful painter of everything from the pop-infused Parisian streets of Diva to the historical evocations of Dangerous Liaisons. In Sommersby, he accentuates the browned-out wasteland of Vine Hill when Jack Sommersby arrives, then gradually turns it green as Sommersby's presence revives it. Inside the Sommersby farmhouse, his elegant use of shadow helps convey the sense of uncertainty as Jack and Laurel (re)discover each other and achieve a closeness that neither of them would ever have imagined. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is one of its better catalog efforts, providing an engrossing and film-like reproduction of Rousselot's imagery. Detail is excellent, blacks are deep, contrast is appropriately subdued so that shadow detail always remains visible, and the entire affair has a velvety texture that gives the image depth and substance. The film's grain texture is fine, natural-looking and undisturbed by inappropriate digital manipulation. The use of a BD-50 has allowed more than sufficient room to avoid over-compression. Whether or not Sommersby is to your taste as a drama, its treatment on Blu-ray can't be faulted.
I have been unable to confirm the original audio format of Sommersby's theatrical release. It hit theaters less than a year before Dolby Digital became officially available on motion pictures and several months before the launch of DTS. Warner's 1999 DVD of the film featured only a DD 2.0 soundtrack, but that is not definitive, because Warner sometimes used a low-bit 2.0 soundtrack on its early DVDs to conserve space (a notable example being Dolores Claiborne). In any case, the Blu-ray's track is a robust DTS-HD MA 5.1, which provides substantial breathing room to the atypically romantic orchestral score by Danny Elfman. Consistent with director Amiel's emphasis on the inner life of the main characters, the score receives more emphasis than sound effects in the film's mix, although the effects are certainly present and clearly reproduced, e.g., the various sounds of the Vine Hill citizens gradually coaxing a tobacco crop from the land, and the numerous reactions from the courtroom crowd to the increasingly bizarre developments of the Sommersby case. Dynamic range is appropriately wide, and one can tell from the musical reproduction that bass extension is clearly available, but the film's sound design doesn't call upon it. Except for one mild fistfight, Sommersby is not an action film. The dialogue is always clear, and I never found the regional accents a barrier to understanding. (I can't vouch for their authenticity.)
Other than the film's trailer (480i; 2.34:1, enhanced; 2:00), the disc contains no extras.
An American setting is especially powerful for a story about second chances, and it's not accidental that the least admirable characters in Sommersby are those who are unwilling to move forward, like the witness in Judge Isaacs' court who tells His Honor that he'll soon be back in the fields where he belongs, or Orin Meecham, who responded to romantic disappointment by hanging around the woman who didn't choose him, hoping her marriage would fail. Whoever Jack Sommersby might be, he looks to the future, and that's why Laurel and the people of Vine Hill warm to him. Not for everyone, but highly recommended.
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