Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 15, 2019

Where the Day Takes You peers into the gritty realities of homelessness and runaway culture, following a collection of young men and women, in their late teens or early twenties, who have made choices in their lives that have led them together, huddled under a bridge, begging for money, and addicted to drugs. Director Marc Rocco (Murder in the First) leaves no stone unturned, crafting a film that is at once both realistically constructed and dramatically compelling, written and photographed and acted so authentically it plays on the fringes of documentary. Though visually drab and emotionally dour, the film proves highly effective in not only depicting these characters' lives but drawing the audience into their world, opening not only the doors to their way of life but their emotional states and mindsets that have led them to where they are and shaped who they have become as a result. Sobering yet satisfying, Rocco and his all-star cast craft one of the most daring and thoughtful cinematic explorations of troubled runaways and homelessness in contemporary America.

The film's focus is on King (Dermot Mulroney), a man in his early twenties and de facto leader of a makeshift family comprised of runaways, junkies, prostitutes, and people in search of escape and a new life. His group includes the drug addicted Greg (Sean Astin), a young man with a troubled past who is forced into male prostitution known as Little J (Balthazar Getty), an individual with dreams of escaping Los Angeles for Dallas named Crash (James LeGros), the legless and wheelchair-bound Manny (Will Smith), the overweight Brenda (Ricki Lake), and her friend and the group's newest member, Heather (Lara Flynn Boyle), a runaway escaping trauma within her own family back in Chicago. The group lives under a bridge near a busy L.A. freeway, begs for money on Hollywood Boulevard, and is not above theft and prostitution to put food in their mouths. King and Heather form a romantic connection but their burgeoning romance is threatened by the unpredictable and potentially deadly realities of their way of life.

The film ebbs and flows between feelings of hope and hopelessness for the characters. They are likable, generally, particularly as the film shapes their stories not strictly within the context of where they are but also where they have been and where they hope to go. Those are sometimes geographical destinations but primarily personal destinations, hopes and dreams that have been deterred and on the verge of being destroyed by the seemingly inescapable realities of their lives. It's difficult to watch the movie without concern for the characters, with the understanding that their choices and their circumstances seem to be leading them down an inescapable date with death at some point, in some way. They are not seeking out an existence in the film. They are seeking out survival. To do so, they must shed any pretenses of personal code, morality, sense of right and wrong. That often lands them in trouble with the law, their friends, their families, even one another, but generally they are held together by a bond of friendship forged from shared circumstances, collective consequences, and, it seems, predetermined destinies.

All they have in the world is one another. Their want to feel wanted and need to feel needed are no longer, if they ever were, met in the home, but with one another. They have become family, broken, battered, physically and emotionally bruised, but they find solace, comfort, maybe a glimmer of hope in one another, in fighting, surviving, together. The cast is uniformly excellent. The sheer level of talent on the screen is about as great as most any other movie has ever mustered, but what's so amazing aren't the names in the credits and the faces on the screen but rather the depth and authenticity each brings to his or her character and the collective camaraderie and chemistry and realism that they find together. Each character has been carefully built on the page and constructed on the screen. The actors, in grungy attire, maneuvering through less than ideal living conditions, traversing dangerous locations, hopelessly addicted or desperate (or both), effortlessly transform into their characters and melt into their surroundings. The names and faces of Hollywood's best-of-the-best disappear and become the faces of pain, despair, regret, reality, and maybe hope. It's a wonderful collective work.

Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony has released Where the Day Takes You to Blu-ray on a pressed MOD (Manufactured on Demand) disc. The studio's 1080p presentation is excellent, maintaining a very healthy and attractive natural grain structure that carries the picture to a desirable and attractive filmic high. Textural qualities are wonderful. Worn walls in a restaurant, grimy underground and graffiti-strewn surfaces, raw urban textures, old clothes, and complex facial details are the norm. Every scene is a treasure of texture, from facial close-ups to expansive urban vistas that each find the intimacy and clarity and sharpness that recreates the theater experience in the home. Colors are well rounded, lacking intense saturation and pinpoint brightness and accuracy but find a stable middle ground where the diverse selection of colors, both in well-lit Southern California city exteriors and in nighttime shots, appear nicely rendered and generally faithful. Black level depth is very good with only slight examples of crush in the most challenging dark scenes, such as nighttime scenes featuring the characters at home underneath the bridge and along the freeway. Skin tones appear accurate and true to actor complexion. No significant source or encode flaws are readily apparent. This is another high quality catalogue release from Sony.

Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio lossless soundtrack compliments the film nicely. The opening title music enjoys fairly effortless width that extends to the stage's far edges. Lyrical and instrumental clarity are highlights as well, and such characteristics carry on through the entire film. There are some good examples of front end stage traversal, such as cars driving along the freeway in chapter three and in several other scenes throughout the movie. Many such exterior scenes around the city are sorely missing a greater sense of immersive sonic involvement. That freeway scene is effective along the front but obviously missing something that could have opened up the world and better drawn the listener into the moment. There's a feel of disconnect from the scene without any sort of surround wrap, but within the confines the effect at least takes advantage of the full front stage width. A few gunshots, crashes, and the like present with adequately healthy depth and detail. Dialogue is the primary sonic highlight, and it seamlessly images to the center. No problems of clarity or prioritization are evident.

Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Where the Day Takes You contains no supplemental content. The main menu only has options for "Play Movie" and "Subtitles." No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

Where the Day Takes You Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Where the Day Takes You is a captivating film that tells a story of hopelessness and despair but finds a humanity in the togetherness and sense of family the characters share in a world where they've been forced to find comfort in one another, where that comfort is the only real reprieve from directionless and dangerous ways of life. The cast is spectacular, with names like Dermot Mulroney, Sean Astin, Will Smith, and Lara Flynn Boyle completely disappearing into character and the environments they navigate. The film is sobering but in a way hopeful, too, even if Director Marc Rocco never takes the easy way out. Sony's MOD Blu-ray release delivers excellent video, good two-channel lossless audio, and no supplements. The latter is a drag, but the video, audio, and quality of the film earn this release a solid recommendation.