Life During Wartime (Blu-ray)
Directed by Todd Solondz
Studio: Criterion
Year: 2010
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 97 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English
Subtitles: SDH
Region: A
MSRP: $ 39.95
Release Date: July 26, 2011
Review Date: July 21, 2011
The Film
3/5
A decade after uncomfortably entertaining audiences with Happiness, director-writer Todd Solondz revisits his characters in Life During Wartime. Unlike most sequels, however, he has cast completely different actors in all of the singular roles from the previous film, and that recasting in effect offers different shades and alternative interpretations to the people who both amused and revolted us in that earlier film. The film retains that droll sense of the absurd that Solondz is noted for, but the array of broken people struggling with their recovery is somewhat overwhelming in the film making it less interesting than the first movie. The themes of unhappiness and forgiveness are paramount in the film, but it’s cinema that questions deeply without providing even a clue to the answers making it thought-provoking to be sure but less satisfying than it should be.
Three sisters a decade after major life-altering circumstances broke their psyches take major steps toward rebuilding their lives and establishing some sense of normalcy. Joy (Shirley Henderson) is anything but her namesake, still finding life disconcerting with husband Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams) and beginning to take steps to try to find some balance. Fanciful confrontations with an ex-boy friend (Paul Reubens) who committed suicide don’t help, and black sheep sister Helen (Ally Sheedy) whom she visits in Los Angeles has abandoned poetry for a successful career as an award-winning writer for television and the movies (and is also having an affair with Keanu Reeves) spends more time make excuses for her lifestyle than helping Joy with her own. Older sister Trish (Allison Janney) has left New Jersey for Florida and is excited about the possibilities with a new man in her life Harvey (Michael Lerner), but her son Timmy (Dylan Riley Synder) has learned of his father’s (Ciaran Hinds) arrest and conviction for pedophilia and is mortified that he might inherit the bad genes and could emerge as an adult with the same perverse tastes, fears his mother is unsuccessful in easing his conscience about. As for father Bill, he’s released from prison and makes treks to visit both his sons (Chris Marquette plays the older son away at college) to see what the effect of his crimes has been on them.
With such grim lives, one would think the movie would be awash in despair and desperation, and while there is certainly plenty of that (most especially in Timmy’s anguish which he wears almost as a badge of honor), there’s also the other side of the coin as the characters struggle with making life work for them, even if they aren’t quite capable of making lemonade from the lemons they’ve been handed. Those who have seen Happiness may feel the replacement cast doesn’t quite equal the deep rooted personal experiences from the first film, but there is something to the director’s feelings that people are capable of change in a decade so that they seem to be different souls from earlier in their lives, thus justifying a different slate of actors playing these changed individuals. What hasn’t changed is that droll comic absurdity that Solondz can imbue his characters with, almost ridiculous in their outraged sense of a decency living beneath their surfaces that they feel other people are too lazy to look to find. And his language has never been so viciously visceral than in a scene that seems almost unnecessary and yet cuts right to the heart of the film’s brittle and bitter irony: a bar pickup between Bill Maplewood (lying that he’s straight) and acid-toned, life reject Jacqueline played by Charlotte Rampling. Their sexual encounter, in fact all of the sexual simulations in the movie, is loud and ugly, more exhausting and laborious than fulfilling and stimulating, a defeatist sensibility that’s at the heart of this movie.
The actors give their all to this project. Ally Sheedy, Allison Janney, and Shirley Henderson might not be overly convincing as sisters (their mother played in a cameo by Renee Taylor), but they’re all terrific at playing injured women on the cusp of collapse. Ciaran Hinds is a haunting shell of a man shuffling around to see the effects of his crimes on those he supposedly loved. Michael Lerner offers a no-nonsense portrait of a divorcee taking one more chance at happiness, unfortunately with a family too damaged to fully welcome his attempt, and his scene with the terrific and somewhat terrifying Dylan Riley Snyder’s Timmy where he tries to convince him he’s a straight-shooter before it all goes wrong is one of the film’s real highlights. Paul Reubens and Michael Kenneth Williams each etch convincing pictures of men too unsure of their own goodness or rightness to be able to survive the uncertainty and fragility of the woman they love.
Video Quality
4.5/5
The film has been framed at 1.78:1 and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. Filmed with the RED camera, the film’s look is quite hot with an overwhelming sense of brown and burnt umber in almost every shot and all colors deeply saturated. Flesh tones, therefore, are quite a bit on the brown side. Sharpness, however, is never in question, and close-ups reveal quite a bit of fine detail. The film has been divided into 18 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix does not have a lot of showy effects for the front and rear channels. The music for the film, mostly classical and pop pieces, does get a fair amount of spread through the fronts and rears. Dialogue has been well recorded and resides firmly in the center channel.
Special Features
4/5
All of the video featurettes are presented in 1080p.
“Ask Todd” is a 44 ¾-minute audio feature where writer-director Todd Solondz answers a lengthy series of questions about Happiness, Life During Wartime, and his experiences at film school and in life that have led to the production of his work.
A video interview with many of the key actors from Life During Wartime finds Ciaran Hinds, Michael Kenneth Williams, Shirley Henderson, Ally Sheedy, Paul Reubens, Michael Lerner, and Allison Janney discussing working techniques with the director and their own preparations for their roles in the film. It runs 30 minutes.
Cinematographer Ed Lachman contributes three bonus features to the package:
- a 10 ¾-minute video interview discussing his experiences of shooting digitally instead of using film
- a select scene commentary on six sequences in which he discusses lighting and shooting with the RED camera that runs 7 ¾ minutes.
- Answering five specific questions about his work as a cinematographer or assistant on a series of films that helped him hone his craft. This runs 7 ¼ minutes.
The film’s theatrical trailer runs for 2 ¼ minutes.
The enclosed 18-page booklet contains cast and crew lists, a couple of illustrations, and a critical essay on the movie and director Solondz’s career by movie critic David Sterritt.
The Criterion Blu-rays include a maneuvering tool called “Timeline” which can be pulled up from the menu or by pushing the red button on the remote. It shows you your progress on the disc and the title of the chapter you’re now in. Additionally, two other buttons on the remote can place or remove bookmarks if you decide to stop viewing before reaching the end of the film or want to mark specific places for later reference.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
Like all of his films, Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime is not an easy film to view or appreciate, but he touches on ideas and themes that most filmmakers stay far, far afield from, and one watches these efforts with a grudging respect for a director who dares to broach taboo subjects and then allow his audiences to subsequently find their own interpretations and impressions. The generous bonus features and excellent video and audio transfer aid in a viewer’s appreciation of such heavy and difficult material.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
