The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie Review

The Undiscovered Country

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 21, 2017

Lawrence Kasdan was already a successful screenwriter when he graduated to directing, having scripted Raiders of the Lost Ark and co-written The Empire Strikes Back. Kasdan's debut as writer/director was 1981's Body Heat, which featured career-making performances by William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in a steamy neo-noir that prompted favorable comparisons to classics like Double Indemnity and Out of the Past. Kasdan followed up with The Big Chill, which has become a template for reunion dramas, and Silverado, one of the rare modern Westerns that succeeded without starring Clint Eastwood.

In 1988, Kasdan reunited with his Body Heat stars to film an entirely different type of drama, The Accidental Tourist, adapted from Anne Tyler's novel by Kasdan and Frank Galati (the latter an actor from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company). The reunion of Turner and Hurt prompted curious pre-release publicity, including an account by Turner of how she and her co-star punked their director by lapsing into their Body Heat characters just before a take. When the film was released in December 1988, however, it was co-star Geena Davis who got all the attention for her showy role as an eccentric dog trainer, eventually winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, one of four Academy Awards for which the film was nominated, along with screenplay, score and Best Picture.

Intimate dramas are an increasingly rare breed in contemporary mainstream cinema (the Oscar-winning Moonlight notwithstanding), which makes Kasdan's fourth film an ideal candidate for the Warner Archive Collection. Now remastered in an elegant Blu-ray edition, the film has lost none of its quirky charm or emotional resonance in the nearly thirty years since its initial release.

Macon Leary (Hurt) writes guides for business travelers aimed at making their journey feel as if they've never left home. The books' logo, designed by their publisher and Macon's friend, Julian Hedge (Bill Pullman), is a winged armchair, because, as Julian explains, "armchair travelers dream of going places, [but] traveling armchairs dream of staying put". Macon's measured approach to everyday living mirrors his advice to readers on maintaining control over unfamiliar circumstances. His reclusive nature is shared by his three siblings, sister Rose (Amy Wright) and brothers Porter and Charles (David Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley Jr.), who live in the house where they were raised and venture out only when necessary. As Macon puts it, his relatives are stuck in "the Leary groove". In a running joke, the family of this travel writer is so directionally challenged that they cannot drive around the block without getting lost—and that's only the start of their catalog of eccentricities.

The film opens one year after Macon and his wife, Sarah (Turner), lost their 12-year-old son to violent crime. Neither parent has recovered from the loss, which has gradually corroded the marriage. When Macon returns home from a trip researching his next book, Sarah demands a divorce, and after she moves out, Macon is left to his own devices and beset by uncontrollable forces, including, above all, his son's dog, Edward, who is just as traumatized as the boy's parents. Macon's efforts to deal with Edward lead him to Muriel Pritchett (Davis), who boards and trains dogs and who is Macon's opposite in every way: garrulous where he is reserved; instinctive where he is calculating; and impulsive where he is staid and predictable. Within seconds of setting eyes on Macon, Muriel wants to know him better, though Macon can't begin to fathom why. Much of their early relationship consists of Muriel prodding Macon for a reaction, while he stares back at her like an alien who just dropped in from another dimension.

The Accidental Tourist is the story of Macon's halting recovery, as he is gradually coaxed out of mourning by Muriel and also by her son, a sickly boy named Alexander (Robert Hy Gorman) to whom Macon finds himself unaccountably drawn. Meanwhile, the "Leary groove" is destabilized when Macon's publisher crashes a family dinner and falls for Rose, who is thrilled at the prospect of love but resists change even more forcefully than Macon. When Sarah reappears, dangling the possibility of restoring Macon's old life, he finds himself at a crossroads for which all of his prior travels have left him unprepared.

The Accidental Tourist proudly wears its metaphors on its sleeve, including the crutches to which Macon is confined after an injury following Sarah's departure. Macon's books are as much a commentary on his life as they are advice to reluctant travelers, and the excerpts that punctuate the film in voiceover grow increasingly ironic as the story progresses. While Geena Davis may have won the Oscar, it is Hurt's performance that dominates the film. He conveys the depth of Macon's reserve in tiny gestures, flickers of expression, defensive postures in even the most ordinary encounter, and utterances preceded (and punctuated) by long pauses, as if each word had to be excavated and dusted off. Macon's bewildered reaction to Muriel, whom he describes as "odd", speaks volumes even when silent. It's the incomprehension of someone who finds the world too dangerous and uncertain to risk thrusting oneself forward as Muriel does. Only in rare moments—with Alexander or occasionally with Julian —does Hurt reveal the inner warmth that Macon buried inside himself after his son's death. "Everyone looks trivial and foolish, and not related to me", Macon confesses to Muriel, who sees potential in him beyond his pain and loss and refuses to let him slip away.

The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Accidental Tourist was shot by the versatile cinematographer John Bailey, with whom Kasdan had previously worked on Silverado and The Big Chill and who has since shot such diverse fare as Groundhog Day, In the Line of Fire and the recent How to Be a Latin Lover. For The Accidental Tourist, Bailey diffused a soft, gentle light over the understated production design, which gives Macon Leary's world the unobtrusively uniform quality of the gray suit he recommends for business travelers. Both the Baltimore locations and the homes occupied by Macon and Sarah and by Macon's siblings are dominated by dark, dull browns, grays and beiges, whereas Muriel Pritchett's arrival introduces bright reds, pinks, purples and other riotous shades. Despite the gentle light, Bailey's camera captured copious detail, which is displayed to full advantage on the Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray. The Blu-ray features a new master created by Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility by scanning an interpositive of recent vintage at 2K, followed by appropriate color correction and cleanup. The result is as delicately nuanced as the film's performances, with pensive figures framed against interiors that retreat into darkness around them. The dim imagery has been carefully rendered, with excellent shadow detail and a precisely balanced palette, in which an array of earth tones is routinely interrupted by flashes of fluorescence (see, e.g., the blue dog leash in screenshot 19 or Muriel's thrift shop sweater top in screenshot 9). The film's grain pattern is natural and undisturbed by digital tampering. The Accidental Tourist has been mastered at WAC's usual high average bitrate of 35 Mbps.

The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

WAC has taken The Accidental Tourist's original stereo soundtrack from the Dolby Stereo print master and encoded it on Blu-ray as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. When played back through a good surround decoder, the track provides a quiet sense of ambiance for distinctive environments like Muriel's threadbare neighborhood, Macon's Parisian hotel and Julian's publishing office after a makeover. Like the film itself, however, the sound effects are gentle and understated, and the soundtrack is dominated by dialogue (which is always clearly rendered), by Edward the dog's barking (which is generally sharp and high-pitched) and by John Williams' Oscar-nominated score, which is one of the celebrated composer's most charming creations. Opening with a simple theme gently tapped out on a piano, Williams expertly modulates the musical accompaniment with the film's rising and falling emotions, concluding with a grand orchestral swell worthy of his most epic compositions. As in so many other films, Williams once again demonstrates that he is an incomparable creative partner. The Blu-ray's track renders this lovely musical accompaniment with excellent fidelity and broad dynamic range.

The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2004 DVD of The Accidental Tourist. The trailer has been remastered in 1080p.

• Introduction by Lawrence Kasdan (480i; 1.33:1; 3:15): The short featurette first appeared on the DVD.



• Commentary by Geena Davis (1080p; 2.40:1; 38:18): This is a "scene-specific" commentary on select scenes with a total running time of just over 35 minutes (followed by the closing credits). Davis notes at the beginning that she hasn't seen the film in years but demonstrates an impressive recall of both her preparation and the experience of production. She describes how she aggressively sought the role after first reading the novel on the set of The Fly. She also provides an extensive account of her Oscar nomination and unexpected win.



• It's Like Life (480i; 1.33:1; 13:03): This featurette includes vintage interviews with Kasdan, Turner and Davis.



• Lifted Scenes (480i; 2.40:1; 37:32): According to a reliable source, the designation of these scenes as "lifted" (rather than "deleted" or "outtakes") was made at Kasdan's specific request. The scenes are not separately listed or selectable, but each one is preceded by intertitles providing a caption and brief explanation.
  
  It's a rich assortment of material. The most substantively interesting scene is "Meeting in a restaurant", an extended conversation between Sarah and Macon that provides further background on the Leary family. The most historically interesting is "Macon and Muriel reconnect", which was shot in and around the World Trade Center but is, on the whole, a problematic scene that would have weakened the film. Unlike so many collections of deleted scenes trimmed for pacing, these "lifted" scenes provide an informative case study of how good films can be made—or broken—in the editing room.
  
  
  • Driving in the rain.
  • Macon talks to Rose.
  • Julian calls Macon.
  • Meeting in a restaurant.
  • Macon and Muriel reconnect.
  • Rose slow-cooks the turkey.
  • Muriel and Macon train Edward.
  • Macon makes breakfast.
  • Macon and Porter find a broken pipe.
  • Macon's mother.
  • Alicia hugs Julian.
  • Muriel and Macon talk in bed.
  • Dominick babysits Alexander.
  • Dominick is dead.
  • Muriel and Macon in a Paris elevator.
  • Macon and Muriel lunch in Paris.
  • Muriel asks to go with Macon.
  • Macon asks about Muriel: "Partir?"



• Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:32).

The Accidental Tourist Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I have seen The Accidental Tourist many times since it was first released, and I always find it a moving and thrilling experience, but it's not easy to capture the film's appeal in words. Kasdan and his creative partners achieved something rare and magical, a gossamer balance of humor, insight and intense feeling that has eluded the director in subsequent attempts like the more recent Darling Companion. The fine points of an intimate drama can be as challenging as the massive logistics of an epic adventure. One bad edit or misspoken line, and the spell may be broken. Here, though, not a single step goes wrong. Highly recommended.