6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
When her upper crust boyfriend proposes, Melanie Carmichael, a rising fashion designer in New York, returns home to the South, where her current husband has refused to sign the divorce papers Melanie sent him seven years ago. Revisiting her Southern roots is far different than Melanie ever expected.
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Candice Bergen, Mary Kay PlaceComedy | 100% |
Romance | 79% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Thai: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Simplified), Thai, Vietnamese
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Critics didn't warm to Sweet Home Alabama, but it sold a lot of tickets and cemented Reese Witherspoon's status, after Legally Blonde, as a box office draw. She's tried to anchor a romantic comedy of equal appeal ever since, and though a few have done all right, none has matched the attraction of this fairy tale about a southern Cinderella torn between two princes, one on either side of the Mason-Dixon line. As director Andy Tennant (Hitch) discusses at length in the accompanying commentary, the filmmakers took great pains to make their heroine choose between a pair of suitors where neither had an obvious flaw. Sweet Home Alabama thereby departs from the usual formula of romantic comedy in which the deck has been stacked and the choice is clear to the audience, if not immediately, then eventually. Indeed, after an early test screening, all the men in the focus group wanted to know what the rejected lover had done that was so wrong? Witherspoon was born in New Orleans and raised mostly in Nashville, and she has said that being southern is one of three stereotypes against which she's had to struggle (the other two being blonde and female). Her southern heritage made her ideal casting for Melanie Smooter/Carmichael, the girl from Pigeon Creek, Alabama, who reinvented herelf in New York City, fudging a few key details about her past in the process. Charlize Theron was originally cast; depending on which source you read, she either dropped out by choice or was replaced for fear she didn't have the comic chops. Theron would no doubt have done fine work, but Witherspoon's grasp of the subtleties of regional displacement has an authenticity that can't be faked. The tiniest calibrations of her drawl have significance. "You know that accent of yours is a whole lot thicker when you're dreaming", says one of Melanie's New York assistants. Director Tennant might have received more affection from critics if he'd left in some of the North/South comedy he describes cutting from the film in his commentary, but he risked losing too much of his audience. Ticket buyers came to see three attractive people wrangle out their romantic tribulations in an idealized world where real-life issues are treated lightly enough that everyone can laugh them off. Speaking of spousal abuse, the new sheriff says, with just the right amount of emphasis: "We take that stuff pretty serious nowadays." Tennant makes this kind of material work by relegating it to the periphery where it belongs in a light-hearted picture. You laugh, but you're still watching Witherspoon and her two beaus.
Veteran British cinematographer Andrew Dunn shot Sweet Home Alabama, having shot Ever After: A Cinderella Story for Andy Tennant; he would later shoot Hitch. Although Dunn can do highly stylized photography with the best of them (as he did in Precious), his special skill is in casting enough of a romantic sheen over daily life to sustain the romantic illusion without calling too much attention to the trickery. He's the perfect DP for a romantic comedy of this nature. Unfortunately, the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of Sweet Home Alabama is not one of Disney's better catalog titles. The softness of the image is probably attributable to Dunn's original photography and to the fact that the film was released shortly before digital intermediates began to take over the post-production process. But none of that excuses the frequent and intrusive video noise that comes and goes throughout the film's running time, infecting one shot, vanishing in the next, then reappearing like a persistent cough. Screenshots will not reflect the full extent of this phenomenon, because it appears only in motion. The key point, however, is that it shouldn't be there. With source elements in good shape (which these certainly appear to be) and contemporary scanning technology, noise of this degree should not be an issue. At least the problem hasn't been arbitrarily hidden by digital filtering. The Blu-ray's image shows a respectable level of detail, even a very good level when the noise isn't in the way. The black levels are stable, and the color palette provides a subtle but distinct contrast between the gentle warmth of the south and the somewhat harsher black, blue and beige of Melanie's adopted New York. If there were compression or other artifacts in the image, they were hidden by the video noise.
The film's original 5.1 soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD MA 5.1, and it's an effective romantic comedy mix that provides a good sense of ambiance for crowded scenes like Melanie's fashion show, the press encounter with the mayor at Lincoln Center and Stella's bar. Otherwise, the use of the rear channels is limited, and you certainly don't play Sweet Home Alabama for its discrete sound effects. Bass extension is tight enough that the guttural barking of Jake's hound resonates deeply, and the initial lightning strike makes a suitable impression. Dialogue is clear and centered. George Fenton's original score plays with the right impact, and the selection of pop tunes, notably the Lynyrd Skynyrd title track (alternately performed by Cornbread and Jewel), fits right in.
Although Andy Tennant and his collaborators may have worked hard to make both of Melanie's romantic choices good ones, they did build in a difference, but it didn't strike me until this viewing of the film. One of Melanie's suitors has a mother who's warm, gentle, tolerant and charming. The other answers to a tough, acerbic cookie who finds fault continuously and is always the most demanding person in the room. Leaving aside the obvious virtues of the men in question, who would you want for a mother-in-law? With due warning for the relative weakness of the video presentation, I recommend Sweet Home Alabama for the film and its cast. The extras are a nice bonus.
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Deluxe Edition
2003
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10th Anniversary Special Edition
2002
2018
2007
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Extended Cut
2008
The Director's Cut
2001
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Movie Only Edition
2011