Distributed by
Film Four

Cert:

Cat.no: VCD 0042

Running time: 107 minutes

Year: 1999

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 17 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing

Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)

16:9-enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras : Scene index, Trailer

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Director:

David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Dune, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Wild at Heart, TV: Hotel Room, On the Air, Twin Peaks)

Producers:

Mary Sweeney and Neal Edelstein

Screenplay:

John Roach and Mary Sweeney

Music:

Angelo Badalamenti

Cast:

Alvin Straight: Richard Farnsworth
Rose Straight: Sissy Spacek
Lyle Straight: Harry Dean Stanton

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Doing that means leaving his disabled daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) at home as he sets off on his six-week 317-mile journey to Wisconsin.

What follows is a basic road movie that follows Alvin's progress and it's more about the relationships he forges along the way. Farnsworth earned an Oscar nomination for this role and he becomes an octogenarian on September 1st, 2000, while Stanton is older than I thought, having turned 74 on July 14th and it's just a shame he only gets a couple of minutes of screen time at the end.

The picture quality is typical of most VCI releases: an anamorphic print, here in the original 2.35:1 ratio and looks excellent, bar a few flecks on the print which are nothing to be particularly concerned about. Daylight scenes look fantastic with bold, sharp colours. The average bitrate is a superb 8.1Mb/s, often just creeping to 9Mb/s.

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is trouble-free. Dialogue is clear, quiet scenes feature crickets rubbing their legs in the rear speakers, Angelo Badalamenti's score gets into the brain and never leaves and the DD5.1 sound comes into its own occasionally such as when Alvin is passed by a truck after setting off on his lawnmower and later, shooting said lawnmower for breaking down. In fact, there's great fun to be had whenever vehicles pass him by, especially when it's a truck on each side.

There's also three scenes where the dialogue is purposely damn-near inaudible and subtitles are required. It's one of the few times Lynch puts his 'bizarre' stamp on this film.

Extras :

Chapters :

Languages/Subtitles :

And there's more... :

Menu :

Overall, I really expected to get bored to tears with this film, but by complete contrast found it to be a very endearing film and far from anything I'd ever expect David Lynch to be associated with. It's certainly worthy of a rental, although I wouldn't particularly recommend buying it due to the lack of extras and the fact that it's not the sort of film I'd want to watch more than once.

So, what's next for Lynch on DVD? Universal tell me that Eraserhead is a forthcoming possibility, Blue Velvet has already been released but was pointlessly cropped to 4:3 so don't waste your money on that one especially as a widescreen version is planned. An extended version of Dune has been touted, but when that appeared on a Japanese laserdisc it was cropped to 4:3 from the original 2.35:1 ratio because the extra footage was shot for a 4:3 TV ratio and the sound was remixed into mono (!) I'm sure most people could have handled a ratio change as dictated by the footage to keep what was from the cinema version in its correct format.

I'd also like to see both The Elephant Man and Wild At Heart make an appearance, not to mention the entire Twin Peaks series and films.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000