Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman May 26, 2019

Sony has released Director Herbert Ross' ('Pennies from Heaven,' 'Footloose') heartwarming, and heartbreaking, 1989 Drama/Comedy film 'Steel Magnolias' to Blu-ray. The film features an all-star cast highlighted by Julia Roberts and Sally Field. Sony's MOD (Manufactured on Demand) disc arrives almost seven years after limited-run label Twilight Time released the film in 2012. I did not review that release, nor do I have access to a copy of that disc, so this review will simply offer independent reviews of this disc's video, audio, and supplemental content rather than write-ups within the prism of a direct comparison.

Steel Magnolias, a Drama/Comedy about Southern living, focuses on the friendships formed between six women of varying ages who frequent the same beauty shop. Truvy (Dolly Parton) owns and operates said shop and hires Annelle (Daryl Hannah), a young bespectacled woman who is fresh out of beauty school, on the morning M’Lynn (Field) and her daughter Shelby (Roberts) are frantically preparing for Shelby’s wedding. Clairee Blecher (Olympia Dukakis) and Louisa "Ouiser" Boudreaux (Shirley McLaine), the older widows of the group, come to Truvy's on the big day, too, where they all bond over a particularly bad bout of Shelby’s illness (Type 1 Diabetes) and dig through Annelle’s checkered past. As the story progresses the women must overcome various issues and find strength in one another as life’s storms blow through their lives.

For a full film review, please see Jeffrey Kauffman's review of the 2012 Twilight Time disc here (note that the "Movie" score above reflects my own).

Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Steel Magnolias serves up a sturdy, reliable, and gorgeously filmic 1080p transfer. The picture boasts high quality detailing. Sony's image maintains a natural, but not aggressive, feel for sharpness. Grain holds firm, maintaining a light and complimentary texture that lends to the image a positively handsome cinematic flavor. Facial features, including densely applied makeup and poofy hair, are nicely revealing, stable, and consistent in the level of pleasing definition the image has on offer. Suburban Louisiana locales, interiors and exteriors alike, display all the charming accents there are to see. Big trees, well manicured grasses, and odds and ends in bedrooms or hair salons are revealed with expert stability, and Sony's Blu-ray capably showcases the film's world with first-rate ease and natural excellence. Colors are not vibrant by any stretch of the imagination, but the palette is consistently stable and pleasing, just not eye-popping. Natural greens compliment outdoor scenes, particularly in the first act leading up to the wedding sequence where a multitude of colorful clothes dot the landscape, particularly ladies' suits that offer an abundance of enjoyable light pinks and other pastels. Flesh tones push slightly warm in some instances but mostly hold true to the general contrast and actor complexion. Nighttime black levels, such as during a Christmas festival partway through the film, hold deep without teetering towards crush. No major source blemishes or encode artifacts are of immediate concern. This is a gorgeous catalogue pressed MOD (Manufactured on Demand) release from Sony.

Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's Blu-ray release of Steel Magnolias features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The presentation is naturally reserved and front-heavy, offering little of sonic significance but folding in the charming small-town atmospherics with enough natural, quiet depth and detail to please. Amongst the film's most sonically taxing elements are a number of gunshots in the film's first act. Drum Eatenton fires a number of blanks from his revolver to scare birds. Against the relative quiet -- even considering some bustle around the Eatenton house as the final preparations for the wedding ceremony are underway -- there's a fair crack and sense of stage penetration, but suffice it to say the shots come up well short of anything resembling the sort of heft and weight one would expect to hear in real life. A bit later, he and his sons attach firecrackers to an arrow. The pops explode across the front, but with more timidity than aggression. The resultant chaos -- people screaming, a dog barking, birds flapping and flying away -- fail to elicit a significant sonic response. Music is likewise somewhat shy, maintaining solidly wide front end engagement and good clarity. Some bits are a little more lively than others -- a wedding reception in chapter six -- but music is largely content to support rather than dominate. Light Louisiana ambience is folded in naturally, offering a nicely defined feel for place in various exterior scenes. Dialogue certainly commands the film, and it presents, as with everything else, a little light but is clear, detailed, well prioritized, and grounded in the front-center channel.

Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Twilight Time's Blu-ray release of Steel Magnolias included an audio commentary track and an isolated score track. Sony's disc carries over the former and, as has been the case with the recent wave of Sony MOD re-releases of Twilight Time discs, does not include the latter. Sony has also included a featurette, deleted scenes, and a trailer. Please click here for coverage of the commentary track and see below for a few words on the new extras. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Audio Commentary: With Director Herbert Ross.
• In Full Bloom: Remembering Steel Magnolias (480i, 23:22): Writer Robert Harling and Director Herbert Ross discuss the story that inspired the original production, transitioning the material to film, casting and performances, Herbert Ross' direction, making the film's climactic hospital scene, the blend of humor and drama, and more.
• Deleted Scenes (480i, 6:04 total runtime): Included are At the Window, Wedding Dance, I'm Always Right, Armadillos & Hell, In the Buffet, Frat Boy Tradition, Honeymoon Chat, Wedding Wind-Down, Clean-Up Blues, and Christmas Carnival Parts 1&2.
• Steel Magnolias Theatrical Trailer (480i, 1:30).

Steel Magnolias Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Steel Magnolias' trailer proclaims it to be "the funniest movie that will ever make you cry" and that's a pretty spot-on assessment. It's an extraordinarily well done look at friends, family, life, and death. The setting and details shape the film around the periphery but don't define it. It transcends places, accents, and time, getting to the heart of what it means to give life, see it slip away, and the strengths that life experiences form in the soul. Sony's Blu-ray offers excellent video and audio presentations and, overall, includes more extras than the Twilight Time disc. Very highly recommended.