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Middle of Nowhere
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Image Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (31st October 2010). |
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The Film
 Grace (Eva Amurri) wants to go to college, but she can’t because her mother (Susan Sarandon) has spent all of their savings – money that her dead father left to his daughters specifically so that they could go to school and be successful. Worse yet the mother has spent this money on the younger sister, Taylor (Willa Hollland), and the latter’s failure of a modeling career. Grace also can’t get a loan because her mother has accumulated a sizable amount of debt via credit cards in Grace’s name. Sarandon has a knack for playing bad mothers, and she’s especially good here; not since “Anywhere But Here” (1999), a film I had the misfortune of seeing on a flight to Chicago some years ago, has she played such an unlikable, insufferably deluded matriarch. (Consequently, Sarandon’s performance is expectedly good; but that’s where most of my praise for this film ends.) A thousand miles away is Dorian (played by the always likable Anton Yelchin), the spoiled, aimless, just-turned-seventeen son of a wealthy New England family. Dorian has recently learned that he was adopted – bought, from a pair of Russian Gypsies as he says to a couple of party guests – by the people whom had always assumed where his “real” parents. In an act of inappropriate, angst-ridden rebellion he has become increasingly difficult to deal with – getting thrown out of private academies for doing drugs and skipping class. As the film opens, in a contrasting pair of scenes, we see Grace wishing for nothing more than freedom from her oppressive, depressing family, hoping to find a life in which she can have everything handed to her, and Dorian, a kid who does, seemingly on a material level have it all, fleeing (with a Spanish-speaking maid and small dog in a BMW SUV, for good measure) and trying to escape his constrained lie of a life. Fed up with his antics, Dorian’s parents send him to an uncle in the mid-west (to the exact town, coincidentally, where Grace lives) with the hope that the no-nonsense relative will shape the unruly Dorian into the proper college-ready teen that they need him to be so that he can one day take over the “family business”. As part of his rehabilitation Dorian is coerced into accepting a low-paying, tedious job at the local water park, where Grace is also working for the summer so that she can earn the extra cash she needs to go to school in the fall (which she soon finds out, won’t be attainable on the insultingly low wages that she’s being paid). Dorian soon makes contact with a “supplier” and sets about dealing drugs to the water park guests. He befriends Grace, and in a devilish, sly but ultimately evil twist, gets her to be his driver, assisting in his illegal distribution scheme. Being sheltered Grace is oblivious at first, but uncovers the truth in a boastful exchange with the youthfully ignorant Dorian who spills the beans in a misguided attempt to impress. Grace is apprehensive at first, but once she sees the cash flowing in, dives in head first, and actively participates in the shenanigans. It’s during one of these drug drops that Grace meets Ben (Justin Chatwin), a dirty-haired twenty-something who spouts of the kind of “I go to college” philosophical rhetoric that makes recent high school graduates like Grace swoon. She finds Ben’s mysterious demeanor and stories about his time in South America with the Peace Corp far more attractive than anything the bumbling school boy that she deals drugs with might have to say (much to that school-boy’s chagrin). As Grace begins to distance herself from Dorian and his promises of a bright future, falling in puppy love with the bearded Ben, Dorian begins to take an interest in Taylor, his “co-workers” younger, more age appropriate sister. You can guess where this all leads, and let me spoil it for you a bit; it really does go the places you think it will. On that level, “Middle of Nowhere” is a saccharine story about young people’s thoughts on love and finding one’s self. A few twists and turns, and a couple decently acted, heartfelt scenes (particularly Dorian’s meeting with his birth mother) can’t save what is both plodding – even at 95 minutes it feels like two-plus hours – and totally predictable, as well as altogether not the least bit original. “Nowhere”, based on a script by first time screenwriter Michelle Morgan (whose done no writing since, and instead has turned her sights towards acting), isn’t a poorly made film; in fact fits into it’s particular genre quite well, hitting all the expected beats with the precision of a finely crafted timepiece. John Stockwell provides acceptable, if thoroughly unextraordinary, direction offer up many shots that look nice and are well framed. But the script and the style both feel calculated and repetitive, as if it is all part of some larger formula that the creators simply plugged their characters and basic plot into. In the end the film just doesn’t feel worthy of your time, if only because you’re always too steps ahead of the characters. I have no problem with sticking to a formula if that formula is time-tested and offers something more than a generic plot to stand on, like convincing character drama, well-blended chemistry or pithy, quick witted dialogue. “Middle of Nowhere” serves up the first half of the equation – a worn-thin plot and the handheld, organic camera that you’ve seen numerous times in quirky, low budget indie films – but doesn’t follow through with a satisfying solution. There aren’t any unique, defined characters (even if the actors playing them are talented), nor is any of the dialog sharp, nor the interactions and chemistry exciting and captivating. I wouldn’t go as far as to call “Middle of Nowhere” a bad film. It’s just not a particularly good one. It’s certainly not memorable and really much worse than it probably should have been considering Sarandon, Yelchin and even Eva Amurri have been part of some great films (that are great, at least in part, because of them). I guess, above all else, what “Nowhere” really does is prove that not all indie films are brilliant masterpieces that demand viewing and that sometimes films sit on the shelves (produced in early 2008, this flick sat of the selves until this August when it was pushed out direct to video) for a reason.
Video
Another 16mm sourced “indie” from Image, another competent and largely satisfying 1.85:1 widescreen high definition 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded transfer. “Nowhere’s” grain structure is a little less consistent than that of “$5 a Day” (2010) – much thicker in spots than anything to be seen in that other film – but this disc is nonetheless rather pleasing, visually speaking, and looks to be untouched by DNR or edge enhancement and isn’t plagued by any noticeable amount of compression artifacts, despite it’s single layer file size. The Blu-ray release impresses with rock solid blacks, natural, unprocessed colors (favorable of both grassy greens, and aqua and sky blues) and a surprising level of crystal-clear high definition detail. Medium and long shots are unexpectantly strong. There are a few crane shots Grace’s house in the opening credits, a couple of a long shots overlooking a fluently seen bridge and river, and a few other real-life exteriors which show a phenomenal amount of richness, depth and are so clear you can literally count the individual leaves on the tress and single blades of grass. My only complaints are with the water park scenes, which are exceptionally grainy and consequently a bit drab and flat. I expected vibrancy, bright colors and slickness, like the rest of the film – perhaps even more so considering that the water park provides sunlight, fun exteriors – but alas these are not. The grain is still finely rendered and detail is often fine, but the image is just so darn unattractive and full of insect-like swarms of grain during those scenes that I have to mention it. I could almost see Stockwell purposefully shooting these scenes in this dank, gritty style to make some sort of commentary on the repressive, harsh burden that the park represents to his characters, but then again I might even hate this film more if that were actually the case.
Audio
Image has provided a serviceable English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as the lone audio option on this release. There’s a dullness to the overall sound design – but I’m not certain if that’s intentional or not (I could see the creative minds behind the film thinking that the lack of ambience somehow plays into the films themes). Dialogue is clear and unhindered but comes through the front channels, there’s no LFE to speak of, and the mix lacks authorities force, but again, that’s not exactly unexpected given the low budget, smallness of the film I guess. Subtitles are included in English for the hearing and Spanish.
Extras
How very typical – the bullet points on the back of the case make the extras on this Blu-ray seem quite impressive. “Middle of Nowhere” promises a making-of documentary, deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews and the cryptic “more” – sounds good, right? Not quite. While it’s true that those things are included, the supposed “documentary” is really just a fluffy EPK featurette, the deleted scenes were rightly removed from the final cut, and the interviews are frankly redundant. All of the video based material is presented in 16x9-enhanced standard definition widescreen with 2.0 stereo LPCM audio. “The Making of ‘Middle of Nowhere’” is a fairly bland featurette (480p, 25 minutes 3 seconds) that is more of a promotional piece than a real look at the making of the film. The first part of this featurette is broken down into segments that focus on the four main characters (Dorian, Grace, Taylor and Ben); the actors, director and producers give a lot of plot recap and generic interpretation on scenes and their meaning. The last half is a just a jumble of thoughts on the film dumped onto viewers at a staggered pace, under the guise that the film has some sort of deep philosophical base. I suggest overlooking this whole thing; it’s dull and not at all insightful or interesting on basically any level. An eight-part collection of cast and crew interviews, makes up the next supplement on this disc and is simply titled “Cast & Crew Interviews” (480p, 11 minutes 19 seconds). Each interview can be accessed individually or via a play all – I recommend the later if you feel the need to watch these, which I suggest that you don’t. Participants include director John Stockwell, actors Eva Amurri, Anton Yelchin, Justin Chatwin, Willa Hollland, and Susan Sarandon, and producers David Lancaster, Nichole Rocklin. I a word, this is skippable – it’s just unused (and sometimes not even that; there are quite a few duplicate segments) footage from the interviews that were inserted into the making-of featurette. Again, these are dull, uninteresting, and not worth your time. The deleted scenes aren’t actually what I’d call deleted scenes in most cases (even though that’s what the menu lists them as). The material is more like extended and alternate takes of footage that already appears in the film-proper; longer less edited stretches of dialog and a few bridging scenes that don’t really benefit the narrative. Scenes include an extended bit about Dorian’s fictitious, glaucoma suffering, Uncle Freddie, Dorian schmoozing a gated community’s security guard, an extended conversation between Grace and Dorian as they wash the car where they talk about what they want to do in life and why Dorian was sent to live with his uncle for the summer, an overlong version of the “Laundromat dance” sequence, more bits from Grace’s date with Ben, and finally a deleted moment from Dorian’s late night with Taylor involving a terrible deleted joke and a kiss. The montage of scenes runs 6 minutes 35 seconds. Finally, an atrocious looking standard definition theatrical trailer (480p) for the film is included. 1 minute 56 seconds.
Overall
“Middle of Nowhere” is a middling, tedious film with a few decent, but largely uninspired, performances (which really should be much better considering the cast), and a predictable, angst-ridden storyline. Is “Nowhere” a bad film? Not really, but it’s completely ordinary and kind of a chore to sit through at times, not to mention that I was left with a strong feeling that I’d seen this movie before. The Blu-ray looks pretty good – or as good as a low budget 16mm indie production can – in 1080p. The soundtrack is solid, but the extras are crap. This is perhaps a rental, but not much else in my opinion.
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