Distributed by

Entertainment in Video

Cat.no: EDV 9029

Cert: 18

Running time: 104 minutes

Year: 1999

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 12 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras : Scene index, Interviews, Making Of (B-Roll), Featurette, Trailer

Director:

David Kane (This Year's Love)

Producers:

Michele Camarda

Screenplay:

David Kane

Music:

Simon Boswell

Cast:

Mary: Kathy Burke (Dancing At Lughansa, Kevin and Perry Go Large, Nil By Mouth, Sid And Nancy, This Year's Love, Two Of Us, TV: Absolutely Fabulous, Harry Enfield And Chums)
Sophie: Jennifer Ehle (Bedrooms and Hallways, This Year's Love, Wilde, TV: The Camomile Lawn, Melissa, Pride and Prejudice)
Liam: Ian Hart (Backbeat, Clockwork Mice, The Englishman Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, Hollow Reed, The Hours and Times, Land and Freedom, Nothing Personal, This Year's Love)
Danny: Douglas Henshall (Angels and Insects, If Only, Orphans, This Year's Love, TV: Psychos)
Hannah: Catherine McCormack (Braveheart, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Land Girls, Loaded, Northstar, This Year's Love)
Cameron: Dougray Scott (Ever After, Gregory's 2 Girls, This Year's Love, Twin Town)

This Year's Love is a British comedy that looks at the lives and loves of several relationships between several friends and the people they meet along the way.

Danny (Douglas Henshall) has just married Hannah (Catherine McCormack) when he finds out that she's been playing away from home. Disillusioned, Danny explodes with rage at the wedding and then gets as far as the airport where they would've gone on their honeymoon and decides to give the trip to Jamaica away to airport-cleaner-cum-pub-singer Mary (Kathy Burke) who he just happens to meet. She never quite gets there and, after learning of Danny's trademark hobby, asks him to tattoo her arse.

Hannah ends up in a bar with her best friend where she meets up with scruffy Cameron (Dougray Scott), they go to bed and she nearly throws up on him. Elsewhere, Cameron's flatmate, computer geek Liam (Ian Hart) meets up with dreadlocked posh girl Sophie (Jennifer Ehle) and the two of them hit it off as well.

The film then follows the six twenty-somethings over the course of the next three years.

There's no problems with the picture at all. Presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and anamorphic for widescreen TVs, definition is strong and bright colours are striking. The average bitrate is a great 7.5Mb/s, often hovering around 9Mb/s.

The sound is almost perfect. While tunes burst out of the speakers at every opportunity from the likes of Stereophonics, Finley Quaye, Ocean Colour Scene, Bryan Ferry, Labelle, Morcheeba, T-Rex and Garbage, it's suffered EiV's hand at giving it a Pro-Logic-only soundtrack, not a Dolby Digital 5.1 affair. No reason for it on a £19.99 title.

Extras :

Chapters :

Languages and Subtitles :

And there's more... :

Menu :

Overall, This Year's Love does paint a somewhat entertaining picture at times, but at the end of it all, it's yet another tale of people falling in and out of love, bed and relationships. Hence, the whole film does feel rather pointless when it comes to the end.

One to rent, rather than buy, given the lack of substance in the extras.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.