Blu-ray Review Enough Said Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

Enough Said Blu-ray Review

Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said begins so promisingly with abundant charm and humor and wit that one feels almost betrayed when it begins to deteriorate about halfway through into a conventional middle-aged romantic comedy with its secrets and lies masquerading as inventive plotting. With a central character who is old enough and wise enough to know better behaving so idiotically, the movie loses viewer empathy and thus feels incomplete by the end. It’s a shame since there are first-rate components here which could have made the movie something really special.

Studio: Fox

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA, Spanish 5.1 DD, French 5.1 DTS

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 1 Hr. 33 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray, UltraViolet

keep case in a slipcover

Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: A

Release Date: 01/14/2013

MSRP: $39.99

The Production Rating: 3.5/5

Divorced masseuse Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) meets a low-key, affable bear of a man (James Gandolfini) at a cocktail party, and they bond over having daughters about to go away to college. With Albert being divorced as well, he and Eva start an easy-going, friendly relationship that begins to blossom into something deeper. Eva, however, begins to catch on that a new massage client of hers Marianne (Catherine Keener) is actually Albert’s ex-wife, and she begins to listen to Marianne’s incessant criticisms of her ex-husband taking them to heart as Eva herself now begins to notice and dislike some of the things about Albert that drove Marianne away. But she doesn’t let either of the two of them know that she’s connected to the both of them trying to avoid any situations that will thrust the three of them together at one time. Inevitably, of course, the dreaded moment occurs, and the resultant feelings of betrayal and humiliation are just as palpable as she feared they would be.Director Nicole Holofcener’s script irritatingly allows Eva to make every possible wrong choice once she learns the truth of the relationship between her client and her almost-boy friend, choices that seem undeniably absurd given the reasonable amount of common sense and affection she shows to her daughter (Tracey Fairaway), her daughter’s needful best friend Chloe (Tavi Gevinson), or her adult married friends (Toni Collette and Ben Falcone who have their own challenging marriage). They are choices that destroy a lot of already established empathy with the Eva character (running gags with some of her clueless clients are fun and set a blissful and breezy tone early on) and in effect turn her into someone we haven’t seen and don’t want to know. So, when the movie’s inevitable search for a happy ending arrives (after the director plots a going away scene between mother and daughter meant to tear out our hearts and regain our affection for Eva), it doesn’t feel quite earned and leaves a somewhat sour taste in one’s mouth. Holofcener’s direction emphasizes close-ups in the early going but segues into more conventional set-ups as the film runs.Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini share wonderful chemistry together, and one roots mightily for the two of them to make a go of this new relationship. Gandolfini in particular offers such a sweet, easy performance as Albert that one regrets his passing even more after watching this vastly ingratiating performance. Catherine Keener plays the poet Marianne tartly with more of an edge than one often sees in her work. As Eva’s best friend, Toni Collette seems rather wasted with little to do apart from failed running gags involving her continual hiring and firing of her ineffectual maid and the rearranging of her living room furniture. Tavi Gevinson is lovely and vulnerable as young, impressionable Chloe, and Tracey Fairaway and Eve Hewson as Eva and Albert’s daughters respectively give solid performances as sometimes loving, sometimes thoughtless teens. Toby Huss has an effective couple of scenes as Eva’s ex-husband Peter.

Video Rating: 4.5/5 3D Rating: NA

The film’s theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio is faithfully rendered in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Sharpness is usually spot-on (with only an occasional shot which seems out of place among those which surround it), and color is rich and appealing with very believable skin tones. Contrast has been expertly dialed in. The film has been divided into 28 chapters.

Audio Rating: 3.5/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix stays pretty much focused on the front channels with only some bleeds from Marcelo Zarvos’ lilting music making their way into the rear soundstage. Ambient sounds don't get much spread in this mix. Dialogue has been wonderfully recorded and resides in the center channel.

Special Features Rating: 2.5/5

Second Takes (6:00, HD): the gag reel for the filmPromotional Featurettes (HD): five EPK featurettes present writer-director Nicole Holofcener, producers Anthony Bregman and Stefanie Azpiazu, and cast members Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone, Eve Hewson, Tavi Gevinson, and Tracey Fairaway commenting on various aspects of the production.

• Cast (5:58); the characters and the actors playing them are discussed
• Story (3:31): the plot of the film is summarized
• Meet Eva and Albert (2:36): the two main characters are analyzed
• Nicole Holofcener (3:00): the film’s writer-director is praised
• Julia (3:00): the film’s leading lady explains why the part appealed to her

Theatrical Trailer (2:25, HD)Ultraviolet: code enclosed in casePromo Trailers (HD): Baggage Claim, Romeo and Juliet.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Fans of the stars may find much to like about Enough Said, but its fairly predictable second half spoils somewhat the appealing charm of the early reels. The Blu-ray does offer a beautiful looking image that is certainly easy on the eyes.

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

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I enjoyed this far more than you, Matt. I found Enough Said to be one of the best films I saw last year. It isn't as though she makes the wrong choices at every point, her choices are easy to understand (at least for me) of a person who is afraid of the idea of being burned by a relationship a second time after a failed marriage.

I found the performances to really work for me, which put it into the top-10 films I watched this year. I don't know if the plot was ever about finding a happy ending, and I appreciated that there really isn't one. There is just the possibility - and that's it. I found that to be the best thing about this film, that it doesn't follow the typical plotting of a rise to a relationship/etc

The secrets and lies and sneaking around once she fails to tell either of the two what she's discovered is straight from sitcomland. I've seen that same kind of thing in dozens of movies and in every soap opera that has ever aired on television. Additionally, Albert does not deserve the inhuman treatment she gives him once she starts picking up on the "faults" his ex-wife describes. How can she live with herself after picking at him unmercifully in front of her friends at that dinner? And she loves him? Nope, not to my way of thinking. The entire second half of the movie left a very sour taste in my mouth.