Rating summary
Movie | | 4.0 |
Video | | 4.5 |
Audio | | 4.0 |
Extras | | 3.5 |
Overall | | 4.0 |
White Bird in a Blizzard Blu-ray Movie Review
Snow Blindness
Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 20, 2015
White Bird in a Blizzard is the second of ten novels (to date) written by American author Laura
Kasischke, and if a studio had gotten hold of it, the result would have been a cookie cutter thriller
inflated with artificial suspense and a letdown of an ending. Fortunately, the rights were acquired
by the French producers who worked with writer/director Gregg Araki on his previous features
Kaboom, Nowhere and The Doom
Generation and who recognized in White Bird a story ideally
suited to Araki's unique talents. Araki had only once before adapted a novel, Scott Helm's
Mysterious Skin, which became one of the
director's best films, featuring a breakthrough
performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Kasischke's tale of a teenage girl coping—or rather, not
coping—with the disappearance of her mother had a similar appeal for Araki, and he
enthusiastically began writing a screenplay.
As it happened, Mysterious Skin was the first Araki film experienced by a then-teenage Shailene
Woodley, who needed no further introduction when her manager sent her the script for White
Bird. Woodley was then enjoying a newly heightened profile from her award-winning
performance in The Descendants, but much like
Gordon-Levitt when he made Mysterious Skin,
she had been a working actor for many years and felt no pressure to grab the next job offered.
White Bird was the first project that interested her after Descendants, because, she has said, few
filmmakers put as much truth on the screen as Araki.
But Araki's "truth" may not be everyone's idea of a good time at the movies. The director has
compared White Bird to American Beauty
and The Ice Storm in its examination of the
dark side
of the middle class American family, but those films were told from an adult's point of view.
White Bird explores similar territory from the perspective of a sexually precocious teenage girl
who sees, knows and does much more than some viewers may be comfortable watching. (In the
commentary, Araki describes how one scene caused a 1200-person audience at Sundance to go dead
quiet, even though it's just two people talking, except that these two people shouldn't even be
alone together.) Gradually the young protagonist, who considers herself worldly and beyond
surprise, acquires a new understanding of both herself and the parents she has taken for granted, as children usually
do, and she is shocked at how much she's managed not to notice, even though it's been right in
front of her.
White Bird is the story of Katrina "Kat" Connor (Woodley), an only child who has grown up in a
small town in Southern California, the daughter of Eve (Eva Green), a housewife, and Brock
(Christopher Meloni), a salesman. Kat narrates the story as if it were a memoir, which allows her
to jump fluidly back and forth in time, whether to the Seventies, when her parents first wed and
acquired their home, or to when she was a little girl (played by the remarkable Ava Acres), or to
the months in 1988, when she was seventeen, just before Kat came home one day to discover that
her mother had vanished.
Eve's sudden disappearance is the mystery that winds through
White Bird. As explained by the
police detective, Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane), to whom Kat and her father make their report,
hundreds of wives go missing every week. Many just walk out. As Kat describes her family to
the therapist, Dr. Thaler (Angela Bassett), that her father insists she see, a troubled portrait of the
Connor marriage emerges. Wed in a glow of youthful passion and enthusiasm, Eve Connor
blazed through domestic life like the picture-perfect housewife in a TV commercial (there's a
sequence of her cleaning and cooking that's shot with the artificial colors of a prime time ad),
until one day she looked up and realized that she was bored and wanted something more. Exactly
what she wanted she couldn't exactly say. She knew, though, that it wasn't marriage to Brock
Connor.
As Kat matures sexually, she feels her relationship with her mother changing, although she
doesn't understand why. (She tells Dr. Thaler at one point that her mother would often look at
her as if Kat had "stolen" something from Eve.) The tension between mother and daughter
becomes particularly acute when Kat begins dating Phil Hillman (Shiloh Hernandez), the dumb
but studly boy next door whom Kat and her friends at school (Gabourey Sidibe and Mark
Indelicato) initially mocked with the nickname "Garbage", until Kat's hormones kicked in and
she began seeing Phil in a different light. Alternately accusing her daughter of behaving like a
slut and parading herself in front of Phil in revealing outfits, Eve can't seem to decide whether
she wants to set boundaries or violate them. In a detail that's almost too literal, Phil's clueless
mother, played by
True Blood
's Dale Dickey, is a blind woman who is unaware of anything
beyond innocent high school dating. Kat's father seem oblivious, a smile permanently plastered
on his face as he maintains the pretense that everything is fine under his roof.
Kat's reaction to her mother's disappearance, after she recovers from the initial shock, is a sense
of relief, because she no longer has to contend with Eve's increasingly bizarre antics. Dr. Thaler
gives her an expectant look that suggests the shrink is waiting for a different answer, but Kat
insists she's fine. Newly emboldened, she expands her sexual horizons through a clandestine
affair with a much older man whom she enjoys because, as she tells her friends, he's nothing like
Phil (or her father). The only thing that troubles Kat are the recurrent nightmares, where she
wanders through a raging blizzard searching for her mother, catching glimpses of Eve and
sometimes hearing her voice.
Halfway through the film,
White Bird leaps forward to Kat's college years. Eve has never
returned, Brock is now dating a woman from work (
Twin Peaks' Sheryl Lee), and Kat has a
regular boyfriend named Oliver (Jacob Artist) who's pre-med at Berkeley. Normalcy seems to
have been restored, except that it hasn't. Kat quarrels with Oliver in a manner eerily reminiscent
of Eve's fights with Brock. On a visit home for semester break, Kat reconnects with old friends
and acquaintances, and her nightmares resume. Only then does she finally admit to herself that
there are things in her past, and in her psychic DNA, that she can no longer ignore.
Araki has tinkered with the ending of Kasischke's novel in ways that leave a few unanswered
mysteries about motivation (I cannot be more specific without spoilers), but the changes ensure
that the focus remains on Kat and her growing understanding of who she is and where she came
from. Shailene Woodley's work here is even braver and more emotionally demanding than her
celebrated turn in
The Descendants, and not just because of
White Bird's explicit sex scenes.
Woodley has to convey Kat's development through major life transitions without the benefit of a
reliable adult voice to provide an outside perspective, because all of the adults are either suspect
or uninformed. Kat begins as a smart but surly teen who merely plays at being a grown woman
(bragging to her friends about her sexual exploits, pretending to her therapist that she's
unaffected by the loss of her mother), and she ends as a young adult who is beginning to see her
parents as flawed, damaged individuals trying—and tragically failing—to get by from day to day.
What Kat will do with that new-found knowledge is the open question posed by the film's
ending.
The rest of the cast is equally impressive. Eva Green's portrayal of Eve Connor is terrifying, as
Green charts Eve's descent from a hopeful newlywed to a resentful household gorgon who's a
hair's breadth from insanity. Christopher Meloni conveys with every gesture Brock Connor's
defeated befuddlement at how he managed to lose first his wife and now his daughter. As Phil,
Shiloh Fernandez is appropriately difficult to read, with a vibe that vacillates between sweet and
creepy.
White Bird in a Blizzard Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
Throughout his commentary, Araki praises specific lighting effects achieved by cinematographer
Sandra Valde-Hansen, who also shot Kaboom, and who seems capable of
providing whatever
stylized light the director requires. Information about the shooting format was not available, but
post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, so that Magnolia Home
Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files.
A devoted fan of classic Hollywood, Araki likes to give his imagery texture and depth, and he
routinely composes shots formally, with characters at opposite ends of the frame. Although he's a
stickler for accurate period detail, Araki chooses his colors for mood, not realism. The Seventies
flashbacks have a neon-and-polyester artificiality (and the clothes are awful), while the scenes in
the Eighties and early Nineties have richer, shinier colors. Some of the nightime scenes suggest
the influence of David Lynch and Frederick Elmes in their use of shadow in Blue Velvet. The
Blu-ray image is detailed, crisply textured and richly saturated, so that Araki's careful use of
color to distinguish different time periods (and also to distinguish memory from current events)
is easy to follow. Blacks are solid, and gradations of black are well-delineated. White levels are
also accurate, which is essential for Kat's snowy dreams.
Magnolia has provided a high average bitrate of 35.88 Mbps. As a result, compression issues,
banding and other artifacts were nowhere to be seen.
White Bird in a Blizzard Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
The film's 5.1 sound mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, gently modulates
between Kat's voiceover narration and the various environments in which the story is set. Most
of these locales are relatively quiet, but occasionally there's a loud one (e.g., the local dance
hangout where Kat and Phil first make a romantic connection). As in a Hitchcock film, an
occasional sound effect of special importance is sometimes amplified for attention, such as the
impact of a kitchen utensil being wielded by Eve Connor or the hum of an appliance. As in most
Araki films, however, the major sonic component, other than dialogue, is the musical
accompaniment comprised of classic Eighties tunes by such bands as Depeche Mode, Cocteau
Twins, Talk Talk and Tears for Fears, plus original scoring by former Cocteau Twins guitarist
Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd.
White Bird in a Blizzard Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
- Commentary with Director Gregg Araki and Actress Shailene Woodley: The director
and star largely stick to the nuts and bolts logistics of shooting the film, and their
commentary is filled with interesting detail about locations, sets and the sequence of
filming. Araki also discusses some of the changes he made in editing, including replacing
the original opening (included in the deleted scenes) and several other deletions and
rearrangements. He also discusses his musical choices.
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (1080p; 2.39:1; 9:31): The five scenes are not separately
listed or selectable. Araki discusses most of them in the commentary, including the
original opening and a final therapy session between Kat and Dr. Thaler.
- Interview with Actress Shailene Woodley (1080i; 1.78:1; 6:10): Woodley describes
working with Araki, especially how he helped her prepare to play a teenager of the
Eighties.
- Interview with Director Gregg Araki (1080i; 1.78:1; 8:07): Araki covers important
ground missing from the commentary, including the history of the project and how
Woodley was cast.
- AXS TV: A Look at White Bird in a Blizzard (1080p; 2.39:1; 2:51): This typical AXS
TV promo has been created by combining excerpts from the Woodley and Araki
interviews with the film's theatrical trailer.
- Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.39:1; 2:08): I think this trailer gives away too much, but the
film is so rich in psychological detail that there is still more to discover.
- Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for The Two
Faces of January, Frank, V/H/S: Viral and Honeymoon, as well as promos for the Chideo
web service and AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the
chapter forward button.
- BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check
back for updates".
White Bird in a Blizzard Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
Araki is famous for celebrating the exhilaration of youth, but his achievement in White Bird is to
recreate that sense of reckless abandon while, at the same time, conveying the doubts and
uncertainty that routinely tug it back to earth. Depending on your age, you may be left with a
sense of relief that you'll never have to go through that again. Of course, since the film is a
female story told with uninhibited sexuality, a common male reaction may simply be, "Wow,
Shailene Woodley (or Eva Green) is hot!" That's understandable, but one shouldn't overlook the
bigger picture. Gliding along the surface of people—and of life itself—may be
fun for a while, but you end up tripping over things you didn't even know were there. Highly
recommended.