The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie Review

War is yadda yadda yadda.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 12, 2018

In the sole supplement included on this Blu-ray, Kevin Powers, the author whose novel The Yellow Birds provided the source for this film, questions whether “good intentions are good enough” when attempting to assess involvement in a conflict as thorny as the United States’ long “situation” vis a vis Iraq. Perhaps ironically, that same wondering about how far good intentions can carry things may be applicable to the film version of Powers’ novel as well, for while it’s obvious that The Yellow Birds has its heart in the right place and wants to address a number of issues that really deserve to be addressed, the film itself falls prey to trafficking in areas of combat stress and homefront dysfunctions that have been a staple of the “war film” virtually since cinema began. There are some really excellent performances on display in The Yellow Birds, and those may be enough to lift the film above some of its cliché ridden foundational elements for some viewers, but the story has a curiously rote feeling to it, despite being culled from a real life veteran’s tale of horrors seen overseas and then relived in one way or another back home.

There’s a structural artifice at play in The Yellow Birds that is deliberately disjunctive, but which perhaps subliminally supports the thesis that the horrors of war can never be forgotten, let alone escaped, even after the battlefield has been left behind. There’s a feeling of impending tragedy almost from the get go as John Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich) is both seen and heard (via voiceover) in a segment that only begins to make sense once a bit of context has been provided. The film ping pongs back and forth between battle scenes in Iraq and homefront scenes both before and after the tour in Iraq, with an emphasis on the camaraderie between the young Bartle and even younger Daniel Murphy (Tye Sheridan), who goes by the nickname Murph. The two are inevitably “brothers in arms”, but there’s actually an actual kind of sibling relationship between the two, especially since it’s ultimately doled out that Bartle has promised Murph’s mother, Maureen (Jennifer Aniston), that he will look out for her little boy overseas. Anyone who can’t see the foreshadowing on the wall had probably reenlist (so to speak) in a Syd Field screenwriting course.

The undeniable sense of foreboding that suffuses The Yellow Birds kind of ironically may not contribute to what’s meant to be a major third act denouement that is almost intentionally provocative in some of its presentational aspects. Instead, the film’s long, some might think meandering, path toward this revelation seems too refracted at times, wallowing in all sorts of understandable emotional histrionics both in terms of the soldiers being portrayed, but also in terms of the two mothers who are at the core of the story, the aforementioned Maureen and Bartles’ mom, Amy (Toni Collette). As counter-intuitive (and non- (Syd) Fieldian) and it may seem, I wonder if the film might have been better served to have had the fate of young Murphy simply doled out toward the beginning of the film, with the rest of the puzzle pieces then assembled around that plot point, instead of vice versa.

The Yellow Birds has any number of harrowing sequences, including a showdown that has civilian casualties and sudden attacks that disrupt whatever “peace” the forces at the front lines are able to muster (no pun intended). The mentoring relationship between Bartles and Murphy is also generally well handled, as are some sidebars featuring the boys’ religious zealot Sergeant, Sterling (Jack Huston). But for all the performance acumen of both Collette and Aniston, I personally was a little less convinced by the melodramatic aspects of both of these women’s “arcs” (another Fieldian idea), though admittedly both actresses really convey the angst that mothers sending their sons off to war obviously face.

The film probably unavoidably makes the by now familiar case that war is indeed hell, while also providing the also by now familiar idea that Coming Home (so to speak) ain’t no piece o’ cake, either, at least for those most psychologically roiled by what they’ve been through. But The Yellow Birds tends to diffuse some of this potent emotion with needless detours, including a really silly subplot involving Bartles’ romantic interest back home. Much more touching, and saliently much less protracted and contrived, are some of the brief interchanges Murphy has with some women while on tour.

Still, The Yellow Birds most definitely does try to address some issues which are probably still tamped down by some returning vets, while also drawing in the “collateral damage” of what happens to parents when their kids either don’t come back in the same shape as when they left (either physically or emotionally), or in fact don’t come back at all. The film has a lot of intensity and spikes of real feeling, but perhaps due to the sad fact that we’ve been in so many conflicts and had so many cinematic treatments of those conflicts, it can’t quite help but feel like a road well travelled.

My colleague Brian Orndorf was evidently considerably less pleased with the film than even I was. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Yellow Birds is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The closing credits list the Arri Alexa as having digitally captured the imagery, and this is once again a kind of "glass half full / glass half empty" presentation that depends largely on lighting conditions. Much of the outdoor, sun bathed material pops with convincing authenticity, and potential bugaboos like swirling desert dust mixed with the aftereffects of gunfire rarely if ever confront major compression hurdles. But there are a number of darker and/or dimly lit scenes that look downright murky, and noise is evident at least intermittently. The grading here once again ping pongs between warmer yellows and cooler blues (are no other tones available for filmmakers?), with the yellow scenes typically offering better fine detail levels. That said, even some of the cooler grading doesn't really defeat fine detail, especially if lighting is abundant. This is one of the very few Lionsgate releases that I personally can recall exhibiting banding, but it's fairly noticeable in some of the desert scenes where light on the horizon changes.

The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The horrors of war provide ample opportunity for The Yellow Birds' DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track to really burst with forceful LFE and excellent surround activity, but commendably even some of the "quieter" homebound scenes have good attention paid to discrete channelization of ambient environmental effects (something that may be aided by having even many of these segment play outside, or partially outside). Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly, and there are no problems with distortion or dropouts.

The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Reverberations of War: The Making of The Yellow Birds (1080p; 16:54) is a standard EPK that does offer some compelling if brief interviews.

The Yellow Birds Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of the cast may well want to check out The Yellow Birds, for whatever the overall dramatic shortcomings of the story (part of which I personally feel are due to the structural artifices employed), the performances are uniformly visceral and at times quite moving. I'm not quite sure why this film didn't really resonate with me more than it did, other than the nonstop feeling of dread that ultimately tends to suck energy out of the proceedings rather than contribute to them. Video has some slight passing anomalies, but audio is excellent, for those considering a purchase.