The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie Review

Cape Cod Confidential

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater November 29, 2010

You can imagine The Lightkeepers, a lifeless turn-of-the-20th-century Cape Cod period piece, getting constant rotation on some hypothetical AARP cable channel. That is, it’s a film that markets itself to the over-65 set. In fact, the blurb on the cover, from AARP Movies for Grownups, calls it, “One of the most engaging grown-up love stories to come to the screen in years.” I’m going to have to disagree. If anything, The Lightkeepers is disengaging—it’ll put you right to sleep. It’s the cinematic equivalent of warm milk, too cozy and too bland. The film’s tagline—“Where romance is almost impossible…love always finds a way”—should clue you in to the impossibly generic, flimsy feel-good experience in store. Call me a cynic, but love only always finds a way in limpid, predictable romances like this. Even if you like comforting, sentimental wish- wash—and, let’s face it, some folks do—The Lightkeepers is a glacially paced drag.

Richard Dreyfuss and Tom Wisdom imitating the audience of The Lightkeepers.

The film stars Richard Dreyfuss as Seth Atkins, a curmudgeonly old coot who lives like a hermit, tending a lighthouse on Cape Cod, where he’s free from the troubles and trifles of the fairer sex. See, Atkins is a self-professed “woman-hater” who, in an irascible salty seadog voice, says stuff like “Consarn all women!” and other laughably antiquated misogynistic zingers. You’ve no doubt guessed by now that his briny heart was, at some point in the distant past, almost irreparably broken by some less-than-careful specimen of femininity. Almost, because, by the movie’s end— obviously, inexorably, unsurprisingly—love will find a way to heal his wounded ticker.

When a young, clearly well-to-do amnesiac (Tom Wisdom) washes up onshore—calling himself “John Brown”—Atkins agrees to take the kid on as assistant lighthouse keeper, on one condition: that thar be “no lovemakin’ or sparkin’ on these premises.” (And yes, the pirate-speak does sound that affected.) For a while, John and Seth get on well, putzing around the lighthouse, chatting about their mutual disdain for womankind, and generally acting like celibate heterosexual life-mates.

Until—tarnation!—two women move into a nearby cottage for the summer. Ruth (Mamie Gummer) is an insecure artist of John’s age and social rank, and her maid-slash-chaperone, Ms. Bascom (Blythe Danner) is…well, I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the two of you who haven’t guessed it already. Needless to say, the arrival of the women throws a big old wrench into the cogs of Seth’s routine, John’s secrets come out— slowly, ever slowly—and both men open their clammy hearts to the possibilities of love.

Writer/director Daniel Adams has splashed around in these waters before—his 2008 film, The Golden Boys, is also set in the faded Cape Cod of the rose-tinted past, and apparently, a third New England-centric film is currently in the works. The setting is undeniably wistful—the wind-blown waves, the strolls on the beach, the old-timey bathing suits—but the sense of nostalgia clogs the storytelling like hair in a drain. The Lightkeepers suffers from acute inertia; Adams lightly prods his characters, but they seem reluctant to move, let alone act on their impulses. The plot lurches, then, in fits and starts, wheezing and stalling in a geriatric attempt to catch its breath after only barely exerting itself. (If the film were an old man, it would pause forever on the landing between two flights of stairs, hacking up a lung.) When the third act finally arrives, any narrative suspense the film has stored up vanishes in the light of predictable revelations and reversals. If you’re surprised by the outcome, it’s only because you’ve been dozing through the previous ninety minutes—an understandable reaction to a story so somniferous it could make a speed junkie fall into a catatonic trance.

Alas, the performances inject little adrenalin into the proceedings. Richard Dreyfuss, so brilliantly nuanced as Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone’s W., is merely cantankerous here, overplaying his aging-pirate accent to nearly comic effect, and Tom Wisdom, most recently seen in Pirate Radio, plays a poor fop, somehow crossing his aristo-Brit character with Keanu Reaves-ish emotional vacuity. Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep’s daughter, barely registers as even being in the film. Blythe Danner is the only one who seems to strike a balanced, believable tone, but her inherent grace and onscreen charisma can’t save this ship from crashing on the narrative rocks.

The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I've seen wonky color reproduction on Blu-ray before, but perhaps never to the extant that the hues are mangled and shifted in The Lightkeepers' 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer. I can't speak for the director or cinematographer's intentions, but I have a hard time believing that the film is intended to look this way. Whites, like the outside walls of the lightkeeper's house, are perpetually pushed to a dull pinkish shade. The colors of sky and sand are heavily and awkwardly contrasted. Skin tones are so ruddy that the actors all look like they've been baking for days on the beach, sans sunscreen. Making matters exponentially worse, black levels are so severely oppressive that they even crush detail in bright exterior scenes. (Forget making out any shadow detail during the darker sequences.) Clarity is okay, with fairly resolved textures on faces and costuming, but it makes little difference when your eyes are straining against an image so pushed and overprocessed. Grain is intact, at least, and there are no real encode errors or compression problems. Still, an unattractive picture all around.

The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Thankfully, the film's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is nowhere near as bad as the video transfer; in fact, it's actually quite robust. The rear speakers get plenty of usage conveying seaside ambience—you'll hear blowing wind, shifting sands, crashing waves, and pouring rain, etc.—and there are even a few stocky but well-intentioned cross-channel movements, like galloping horse hooves panning from front to back and left to right. The often- hokey score by Pinar Toprak is given ample breathing room as well, with the orchestration spreading throughout all channels for a surprisingly enveloping mix. Dialogue, pirate-speak aside, is clear and easy to understand. The Lightkeepers isn't going to give Saving Private Ryan a run for its money in the audio department, but for a quiet, sleepy film—really, it seems like something they'd put on at naptime at the nursing home—the lossless mix is A-okay. Watch out, though, if you're hard of hearing; there are no subtitle options whatsoever.

The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The bonus features section is nearly as barren as Cape Cod in winter. Besides a theatrical trailer (SD, 2:21), you'll find only interviews with writer/director Daniel Adams (SD, 5:06) and Richard Dreyfuss (SD, 8:48). You'll want to stop Adams' interview after he compares himself to John Ford and Frank Capra, but Dreyfuss' is worth watching just to see the actor go on a political rant that's completely unrelated to the film. (In reality, at least. In Dreyfuss' mind, the film is apparent making some sort of statement.)

The Lightkeepers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dull, dry, and long, even at only 97 minutes, The Lightkeepers will have you nodding off like grandpa after a particularly hearty turkey dinner. Only, there's no substance here. Daniel Adams has endeavored to a make an old-fashioned film that's completely inoffensive, and while that's fine, the end result is a limp, bloodless romance that has little to say and makes us feel even less. Image's Blu-ray is a disappointment as well, with a color-shifted, overly contrasted transfer that's hard on the eyes. Unless you're some kind of Dreyfuss/Danner fanatic or Cape Cod pensioner, skip it.