The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 3, 2020

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a legendary food inventor, vegetarian, surgeon, sanitarium administrator, magazine editor, and author of more than 50 books. He created 75 types of food products (most famously peanut butter and cornflakes, the latter developed with his younger brother, W. K.) and also concocted more than 200 contraptions for body enhancement, including the electric blanket and various vibrating belts. In 1876, Kellogg assumed control of the Battle Creek Sanitarium (the “San”) in Michigan where it became a sanctuary for espousing the Seventh-Day Adventist faith to its visitors, who were often rich and famous. Kellogg preached the principles for maintaining a strict diet and hygiene without indulging in red meat, coffee, thick gravies, or pastries. Instead, he fed his patrons okra soup, granola, stewed rai­sins, grapes, and Bulgarian yogurt. Kellogg and his sanitarium were also well-known for promoting celi­bacy and abstinence. The inventor apparently never fathered any children of his own and adopted 39 to 42 orphans.

Kellogg's remarkable and storied life was told in T. Coraghessan Boyle's 476-page novel, The Road to Wellville (1993), which derives its title from the Kelloggs' rival, the Postum Cereal Company. British filmmaker Alan Parker adapted Boyle's fictional tome into a screenplay, which he also directs in a period comedy that features 56 speaking parts. The film version of The Road to Wellville is set in 1907 when the San was at the height of its popularity. Sir Anthony Hopkins portrays Dr. Kellogg as a flamboyant showman in the mold of a P.T. Barnum. Hopkins reportedly emulated Theodore Roosevelt's voice and studied Bugs Bunny's teeth and facial mannerisms. Hopkins is practically unrecognizable with his crew cut, buck teeth, and billy-goat beard. Traveling to the San via train to receive Kellogg's new therapeutics are the Lightbodys: William (Matthew Broderick) and Eleanor (Bridget Fonda), a somewhat unhappy couple seeking to improve their relationship as well as their own health. William is suffering from indigestion and recovering from alcoholism. He also was inadvertently led to try opium courtesy of his wife. This is Eleanor's third trip to the San where she's sequestered from her husband to receive her own treatment. Parker's movie excels at sight gags that are coupled with seemingly endless sex jokes. It's initially ironic that William is at the San to treat his priapism since the spa's purpose is to decrease one's sex drive. However, a sinusoidal electric bath and Dusselberg Belt that rubs against his naked body appear to have the opposite effect. He's quite curious to gaze at Ida Muntz (Lara Flynn Boyle) when he sees her bare breasts across the way from his room. Ida is played reservedly by Boyle probably because she looks so pale and is suffering from "green sickness." William becomes more interested and attracted to the "nun's nurse" Irene Graves (a very beautiful Traci Lind) as she tends to him often. Still, nurse Irene emphasizes Kellogg's maxim, "Clean bowels for clean thoughts." Parker develops their relationship throughout the second half but I desired more screen time for Lind.

Meanwhile, Eleanor is befriended by two older ladies, Mrs. Tindermarsh (Monica Parker) and Mrs. Cranehill (Camryn Manheim). The latter is trying to find alternate ways to achieve an orgasm, such as treading her bicycle through the paths around the San’s gardens. On the other hand, Mrs. Tindermarsh is a more traditional follower and practitioner of Kellogg's program. Also influencing Elanor is Dr. Spitzvogel's (Norbert Weisser) "German way" of sexual stimulation. She also becomes smitten and turned on by Spitzvogel's colleague, the Irishman Dr. Lionel Badger (Colm Meaney).

Welcome all to Wellville.

Parker's stuffy script also interlocks the story of Charles Ossining (John Cusack), who the the Lightbodys meet on the train. Ossining inherited money from his aunt and is also on his way to Battle Creek to start a cereal company (Per-Fo) to compete with Kelloggs and numerous others. The aspiring entrepreneur Ossining gets on a misguided business mission with the unscrupulous Goodloe Bender (Michael Lerner). Ossining and Bender hire a foreman to formulate a recipe for cornflakes but outside their rat-infested factory, they can't even get pigs to eat them. They enlist George Kellogg (Dana Carvey), one of Dr. Kellogg's adopted sons, to hatch a scheme to dismantle the San so they can take over. One of the best parts of the movie is Dr. Kellogg's uneasy relationship with the unkempt George, a hobo with blackened teeth. Parker flashbacks to when young George (Jacob Reynolds) was the non-conformist and "bad seed" in the very large Kellogg clan. Carvey plays George with sly wit and adding to the father/son relationship is Hopkins's introspection and humanity, which is just what an offbeat film like this needs.

The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select gives The Road to Wellville its US premiere on Blu-ray on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Parker's eleventh feature appears in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which approximates it theatrical framing of 1.85:1. The film has been available in Germany from video label Alive since 2017 and I suspect this 2K scan is struck from the same source. There is only occasional intermittent speckling which is small in shape and doesn't distract from enjoying some sumptuous visuals that recall Merchant-Ivory's period films. Conversely, the picture is quite dark for the interior scenes within the San and during a rainstorm (you can really see the monochrome and gray in Screenshot #9). Skin tones look natural; on some characters, they're fairly warm but on others, cold and pasty. There are no tears or rips on this print. Shout has encoded the movie with an average video bitrate of 36000 kbps.

Shout provides the usual twelve chapters for the two-hour film.

The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround remix (2759 kbps, 24-bit) and the original stereo, which is presented as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1789 kbps, 24-bit). I listened primarily to the 5.1 track, which Shout has done a commendable job of remixing. Dialogue heard from the cast's 56 speaking parts is largely clear and audible. F/x and music deliver some nice ambience and activity on the surround channels.

I first heard of this film through composer Rachel Portman's participation. In two cues to her score for The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), the Brit wrote some New Orleans jazz that provided a reprieve from the dramatic writing for strings and brass in her other pieces. Portman wrote for tuba, which she began doing for The Road to Wellville. In addition to tuba, she employs a kazoo, soprano saxophone, clarinet, strings, and the combo of comb and paper. The thematic material is presented as an ostinato and the theme and variation method is used as the scenes change, yet they sound pretty similar. The underscore sounds crisp on the Blu-ray sound track. They're bouncy rhapsodies that complement the film's flatulent jokes.

Optional English SDH are available for the feature.

The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is the first Shout Select release I can recall in which there's zero extras, not even a trailer.

The Road to Wellville Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Road to Wellville is an irreverent and subversive satire on clean health and sexual wellness. The viewer needs to be in a very lighthearted mood in order to sit and enjoy it. It's littered with bathroom humor and perhaps the most references to colonic enemas I've ever heard. (William Lightbody is sentenced by Dr. Kellogg to a 15-gallon yogurt enema.) Joe Baltake of the Sacramento Bee called the movie "a sex comedy inarguably [sic] unlike any other that any of us has ever seen." Parker's film cost between $20 million and $30 million to make but grossed only $6.5 million at the domestic box office. I hope it finds a new audience on this Blu-ray.

Shout Select delivers a strong transfer and two very solid lossless audio mixes. German-label Alive has an uncompressed English stereo mix and two German-dubbed tracks in 2.0 and 5.1. It lacks any subtitles. It does have the EPK making-of featurette and US trailer that were on the UK's Entertainment in Video's DVD, which also includes three TV spots. So while the Shout is no-frills, it's RECOMMENDED and should appeal to fans of Parker, Hopkins, Fonda, Broderick, Cusack, and Carvey.