The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie Review

Despite an occasional stumble or two, this small scale character comedy has a lot to offer.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 15, 2010

There is an absolutely fantastic book by iconic screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, All the President's Men) about Broadway productions during 1967-68 called The Season. Even if you couldn’t care less about the Great White Way, this is a fascinating read, as it gives all sorts of really interesting background into the rather circuitous ways of show business. One of Goldman’s very intriguing theories is that, to quote an oft-used adage, timing is everything. Plays or musicals that were sensations in one season could very well have flopped in a different year. That of course probably holds true for movies as well, and it may have had at least something to do with a film you’ve probably never heard of, despite its interesting cast, The Six Wives of Henry Lefay. With Tim Allen, Andie McDowell, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jenna Elfman, Paz Vega, Edward Herrmann and Elisha Cuthbert on hand, one would think the film would have drummed up at least a little press, not to mention box office, but it is one of those oddities that seems to have been relegated pretty much to the straight to video market. That really is too bad, at least for moviegoers who may have missed it, for, aside from a misstep or two, this is an often very funny, if extremely odd, little film that is really less about Henry Lefay and his many spouses than about his one and only daughter and her attempts to deal with an extremely dysfunctional extended family.

Andie McDowell starred in the big hit Four Weddings and a Funeral some years ago, and a cogent case could be made that The Six Wives of Henry Lefay could have easily been called Six Weddings and a Funeral. Tim Allen portrays Henry, a ne’er-do-well scallywag (literally—he plays a pirate in television commercials) who owns a lucrative audio-visual chain in upstate New York. Henry goes through wives like some people go through Kleenex. The film starts with Henry on vacation in Mexico, where he befriends a divorced man named Lipschitz (Larry Miller) right before they both decide to go parasailing. Unfortunately, Henry’s trip ends in disaster and his daughter, Barbie (Elisha Cuthbert), long estranged from her father, is informed of his death and the impending funeral. That means she has to leave her comfortable life in San Francisco and march back into the lion’s den of Ithaca, New York, to confront not just her father’s mortality but also the slew of ex-wives and one current widow he has left behind. After a brief flashback detailing the contentious last interchange between Barbie and Henry, that's exactly what happens.

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay manages, for the most part at least, to tread a very fine line between apt character comedy and just the hint of pathos. There’s no denying that the character of Henry is not very likable. After all, this is a man who discards a spouse almost as soon as he’s married her, and as Barbie begins to get more details on her father’s sordid romantic activities, it seems completely apparent that his wandering eye never really stopped roaming. But has Allen every really portrayed a completely lovable character? It’s part of Allen’s appeal that he can depict an out and out rapscallion and still make him at least likable.

Henry’s current wife, Autumn (Lindsay Sloane), is the same age as Barbie, though considerably more giggly and childlike than Henry’s own child. Also on tap are Barbie’s mother, Kate (McDowell), the one seemingly “normal” ex-wife of the bunch; Ophelia (Jenna Elfman), a volatile sexpot who was actually Henry’s second and fourth wife; and Veronica (Paz Vega), a Spanish spitfire who owns half of Henry’s audio-visual business and wants things in general, not just the stores, run her way.

This is a deliberately small film that finds its humor in delicious throwaway lines as the insanity of Henry’s funeral arrangements increases with the involvement of every new ex-wife. Barbara Barrie, who had her own career high with dysfunctional marriages in the iconic Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical Company back in 1970, here portrays Barbie’s Grandmother, and she has a couple of great bits along the way, including a very funny interchange with S. Epatha Merkerson, who shows up about three quarters of the way through the film, revealing that she was actually Henry’s first, previously unknown, wife. “Grandma” doesn’t quite get that an African American can be anything other than “hired help,” and it leads to patently politically incorrect, but hilarious, one liners. Later, her heart to heart chat with Barbie about her activities during World War II are similarly gasp inducing, and very funny. The best one liner of the film probably belongs to Edward Herrmann as the harried funeral home director, who slowly loses his patrician decorum and finally dresses down the group, which has left his funeral home in a shambles, with an expletive laden dismissal which is laugh out loud hilarious.

While a lot of these small character beats work perfectly, The Six Wives of Henry Lefay does falter uneasily a time or two with sudden shifts in tone toward the maudlin. This is a film that would have done better to trust its black comedic heart and played this multi-wived dysfunction for all it was worth. A late in the film sidebar involving McDowell’s character is completely unnecessary, and the important information included in the scene could easily have been imparted without the melodrama that writer-director Howard Michael Gould chooses to employ. These sudden shifts from comedy to drama aren’t helped by a cloying piano underscore that wants to pluck the heartstrings, but which is just plain annoying. And anyone who has ever seen a film of this ilk is going to guess the big “surprise” from virtually the first moment. It’s to Gould’s credit, however, that this putative “twist” isn’t really played for gasps or even laughs, and the film toddles on quite a while after it occurs.

Timing is everything, to be sure. This kind of small character comedy may just not be right for these attention deficit disorder times that feed off of quick cuts and easy, usually slapstick-laden, punchlines. There are certainly much less graceful films that have made box office millions, and the vagaries of success are a mystery that no one can really deign to understand. While The Six Wives of Henry Lefay is far from a perfect film, it provides a wealth of quietly comedic moments that make it breezily enjoyable most, if not all, of the time, and maybe this new home video release will help it find a small but appreciative audience.

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encode, in 1080p and 2.40:1. This is a nice looking, small scale film, with a really good transfer. While colors are fairly muted throughout the film, and some of the outdoor location footage in Connecticut (subbing for upstate New York) seems filtered a bit oddly, overall there is very nice detail here, with very natural looking grain. There are occasional artifacting issues on such items as Elfman's houndstooth jacket, but they're few and far between. Black levels and contrast are good (taking into account the filtering), and Henry has a very pleasing overall look.

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While there's nothing really to complain about with The Six Wives of Henry Lefay's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, there's also very little to get excited about, either. The best moments in terms of what lossless audio can provide are offered by the copious source cues, which include everything from some appealing Caribbean rhythms early in the film, to more alt-rock leanings as we get further into Barbie's story. Dialogue is always crisp and clear, and balance between it and the underscore is excellent. There's simply not a wealth of surround activity here, though in a character based comedy like this one, there really doesn't need to be. This is a solid, if uninspiring, effort.

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray.

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay may have benefited from timing with me. I was in the mood for a smaller scale, character driven comedy, and that's exactly what this film provides. I laughed out loud several times throughout Henry, and that's good enough for me for a film of these more modest ambitions. Henry does falter when it tries to tug, unsuccessfully, at the heartstrings too many times, but the laughs are definitely there, and that's all that really matters. Recommended.