Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Where Is Kyra? Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 7, 2018

What a sad, depressing movie, but also a beautiful movie. Director Andrew Dosunmu, a Nigerian filmmaker whose background is in music videos, has crafted a dark, unsettling, unwelcoming picture about life's struggles and an older woman's inability to climb out of personal darkness and a financial hole in a cold, distant, modern society in which the only help most can offer is a polite word of encouragement. "We'll call you if anything comes up." "I'm sorry, the position has been filled," title character Kyra is repeatedly told throughout the film. Her namesake film is visually bleak and tonally dour, but it's a gripping tale of pain and fear when what little money remains dries up and worry becomes legitimate fear for the future. The film offers no answers except advice to avoid the wrong answers. And, perhaps for some people, there are no longer any answers except for the wrong ones.

Fraud.

Kyra Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a middle-aged single woman who still lives with her elderly mother Ruth (Suzanne Shepherd) who requires near constant care. Kyra has recently had little to show for her life, but she has a roof over her head a place to sleep as the pair live off of Ruth's pension checks. But Kyra's source of income dries up when her mother passes away of old age. Kyra finds herself scraping together whatever she can to keep the lights on, resorting to looking for dead-end jobs (for which there is always a prettier or younger and more able-bodied person to fill it) and sleeping in the cold just to make ends meet. One day, she meets Doug (Kiefer Sutherland), a man with whom she begins a sexual relationship and who is her only escape from life's pains. But she remains desperate, so desperate that she dresses as her mother, dons cover-up sunglasses, and fraudulently cashes the pension checks, which are still coming in. Despite Doug's warnings and her own better judgment, she continues the practice and prays that she avoids being caught.

Andrew Dosunmu and Cinematographer Bradford Young, who also shot the fairly dark Arrival, craft the movie with such an absence of light as to almost make several scenes impossible to see. But the unrelenting darkness is a tool, an emotional bludgeon that reinforces the story's themes and the character's despair. It also keeps focus on ideas. The film often lingers on a shot, usually one of some distance between the camera and the characters. In another film there would be a disconnect with the audience when characters speak behind an obstruction, in shadow, or off to an extreme corner. But here it conveys intimacy, in a way, intimacy in necessarily drawing the viewer into the character's psyche, a portal which is never closed by any distracting externalities. It takes little time for the viewer to feel fully engaged in Kyra's misery and involved in her pursuit of funds to simply live another day. The movie pushes its ideas hard, but it is one of extremes, one in which its character's dire life position is the focal point. There is little context and no build-up. Audiences are occasionally privy to glimpses into Kyra's past: she's a divorcee but little else is revealed or even implied about who she is. Everything in the movie supports the hopelessness of her present, and things grow so bad and so dangerous for her that one almost hopes she is found out if only because living as she lives is really no life at all.

Michelle Pfeiffer, who can sometimes barely be seen in the movie, shines as the increasingly desperate and hopeless loner. Her mother's death is not a trigger for a major emotional response but it is certainly the beginning of a dark and downward spiral that slowly robs her of hope as she comes to realize that the world has passed her by, that her prospects are not just dwindling but are instead gone. She finds temporary comfort and hope and eventually a cohort in Doug, a man nearly as mysterious as Kyra, whose life and finances are a little more stable but he's otherwise not all that different from his new girlfriend. But this is Pfeiffer's movie to carry, and she does so with impressive dedication to dourness, to conveying the sadness, fear, and uncertainty that follow her and come to define her. This is a difficult movie to watch, visually and thematically alike. It's not rewarding in the traditional sense but it is a well crafted peek into a readily declining and deteriorating life for a person whose existence necessarily revolves around what little money she can acquire. It does make her world go 'round until there's not enough to keep her in motion and on the straight and narrow any longer.

Where Is Kyra? Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Where Is Kyra? is, of course, an exceedingly dark movie, tonally and texturally alike. Blacks are a little elevated in spots and trace levels of banding and macroblocking are visible in some of the more absorbing darker corners, but the Blu-ray handles the relentlessly low light material fairly well. Much of the film is lit by warm, low wattage light bulbs nestled under a shade off to the side, illuminating a portion of the frame but falling off the further away it is, until much of the picture is in dense shadow where only basic outlines are visible. Some night city shots reveal punchy neons and lit signage, and a handful of daytime exteriors enjoy a nice escape from the heavy-handed darkness, but even then the palette appears fairly muted and not all that substantial. Still, saturation is largely fine within the movie's constraints. Texturally, the movie lacks much of interest or visual intensity; everything is lost to the low light. Details, then, are only as sharp as they are visible, but basic skin and clothing details, as well as odds and ends in Kyra's and her mother's home and in various other locales around the city, find enough essential sharpness and clarity to please. This is not a movie to watch for intense visual delights; the picture is as absorbing as the movie, and even if it's nothing to look at, the complimentary but overwhelming tone presents just fine on Blu-ray.

Where Is Kyra? Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For such a dark movie, one night expect Where Is Kyra?'s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack to be one of minimal and reserved activity, but quite to the contrary it produces some solid and intensive elements throughout. A few organic environmental effects inside the apartment create a necessary sonic signature for the place, such as light passing traffic in the exterior distance or, more close by, Rose's hissing oxygen tank. Local city-flavor environmental sounds are more pronounced outside. A rumbling train, blowing wind, and rain yield strong clarity as well as good width and a fair bit of depth. A burst of industrial, deep and dense and clanking music bursts into the stage 22 minutes in, immediately following the film's title card. Such sounds return occasionally thereafter to punctuate dangerous moments in Kyra's fraud. Dialogue is generally quiet but clear with steady front-center placement.

Where Is Kyra? Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Where Is Kyra?'s Blu-ray release contains no supplemental content. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release does not appear to ship with a slipcover.

Where Is Kyra? Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Where Is Kyra? offers a sobering snapshot of a destitute and desperate woman in the modern world. Kyra has lost everything she loves, must part with her possessions, and resort to fraud just to keep a spark of hope alive in her life. It's a dour film with little escape from its grim façade or narrative, but the performances are enthralling and the film is captivating through its dark portrait of hopelessness. Universal's Blu-ray is featureless, but video is fine under the film's dark and unforgiving visual constraints. The 5.1 lossless soundtrack rises in intensity and excellence as the situation demands. Recommended.