Beyond Therapy
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julie Hagerty, Christopher Guest, Tom Conti, Glenda Jackson
Extras: Theatrical Trailer, Teaser Trailer
Rating:
Robert Altman helped adapt Christopher Durang’s Broadway play ’Beyond Therapy’ for the big screen and also directed the film. Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julie Hagerty, Christopher Guest, Tom Conti and Glenda Jackson, this is a fun-filled romantic comedy featuring a bunch of eccentric and colliding characters and their way to finding themselves.
Anchor Bay Entertainment has prepared a 16×9 enhanced widescreen transfer of the movie for this DVD that is clean and mostly free of defects or blemishes. Colors are rich and naturally rendered, and the transfer’s black level is nicely balanced, firmly rooting the image while also creating solid shadows. No notable edge-enhancement is evident and the compression has also been handled very well, making sure the presentation is free of artifacts.
The DVD contains the movie’s original mono audio track in Dolby Digital. ’Beyond Therapy’ is unfortunately plagued by general audio problems, such as an inconsistent mix, some sibilance and distortion as well as audible limited frequency response. All of that has found its way on the DVD as well – for better or worse.
The movie’s theatrical trailer and the teaser trailer are also included on the disc.
Anchor Bay has given ’Beyond Treatment’ an adequate home on DVD with this release. While an audio remix would have been nice and would have enhanced the presentation noticeably, at least the presentation is authentic to the original movie in all aspects. Opinions about the quality of the film run the entire gamut – with myself being somewhere in the upper middle, thoroughly enjoying the witty film – and fans of this charming comedy will certainly be interested in giving this DVD a try.
