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Dom Robinson reviews
Film Four
- Cat.no: VCD 0017
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 117 minutes
- Year: 1997
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 17 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing
- Widescreen: 1.85:1 (cropped from 2.35:1)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Trailer, Dolby Digital Trailer, Deleted Scene, Isolated Music Score
Director:
- Anand Tucker
(Hilary and Jackie, The Story of the Storyteller Saint-Ex)
Producer:
- Andy Paterson and Nicolas Kent
Screenplay:
- Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Music:
- Barrington Pheloung
(Inspector Morse)
Cast:
- Jacqueline Du Pré: Emily Watson (Angela’s Ashes, Breaking the Waves, The Cradle Will Rock, Hilary and Jackie, Metroland, The Mill on the Floss)
Hilary Du Pré: Rachel Griffiths (Among Giants, Children of the Revolution, Cosi, Divorcing Jack, Hilary and Jackie, Jude, Muriel’s Wedding, My Best Friend’s Wedding, My Son The Fanatic, To Have and To Hold)
Daniel Barenboim: James Frain (Elizabeth, Hilary and Jackie, The Mill on the Floss, Nothing Personal, Vigo: Passion for Life)
Kiffer Finzi: David Morrissey (Hilary and Jackie, The One That Got Away, TV: Our Mutual Friend)
Hilary and Jackie is a true story based on the famous Du Pré sisters, Hilary (Rachel Griffiths) and Jacqueline (Emily Watson), with their parents played by Charles Dance and Celia Imrie and her brother Piers, by Rupert Penry-Jones (Virtual Sexuality).
In short, both begin with promising musical careers but while Jackie becomes a famous cellist, Hilary decides to get a husband and live on the farm with Kiffer Finzi (David Morrissey). Jackie also gets married, to Daniel Barenboim (James Frain, Emily Watson’s “Mill on the Floss” co-star), but music isn’t the only things these two share: the phrase “playing away from home” should give you a clue. Life doesn’t turn out well for Jackie though, since she contracts an illness and then dies (being a true story, you’ll know that already).
I skipped through this film to get the jist of it because this disc isn’t particularly watchable for reasons I shall divulge shortly. However, the story doesn’t seem a particularly gripping or plausible one but Emily Watson’s acting is superb.
The film was made in a 2.35:1 ratio (and is presented as such in a non-anamorphic ratio on the Region 1 disc), but the print used here has been cropped to 1.85:1 (and the box itself states “16:9” so it’s wrong twice!), has a number of flecks on it and looks a little dark. Apparently the recently-released Hideous Kinky suffered the same fate. What’s left is presented anamorphically, but is slightly off-centre so you can spot the black bar at the top of the screen if you’ve reduced the overscan on a widescreen TV. The average bitrate is 7.5Mb/s.
The sound quality fares better though, particularly for the scenes involving classical music and one of my favourite pieces, Elgar’s Cello concerto, Jackie’s flagship piece. It is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.
Extras :
Chapters and Trailer : Could certainly use more – 17 for the 117-minute running time – and the original theatrical trailer, which, to add insult to injury, is presented close to 2.00:1.
Languages/Subtitles : English Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English for the hard of hearing.
And there’s more… : A mostly-musical five-minute Deleted Scene is here, but to add insult to insult to injury, it’s presented in the original 2.35:1 ratio, unlike the film. The Canyon Dolby Digital Trailer is also included.
Menu : A static menu with the two sisters, with a short, gentle piece of music from the soundtrack and options to start the film, select a scene or the extras.
VCI are normally good at providing good-quality discs so it’s unlike them to cock it up in the way they have here. Even the credits look out of focus and the closing ones speed by too fast in the same way ITV and BBC1 do when they’re trying to show them all but still get them out of the way in the quickest time possible.
Hence I cannot recommend this disc to anyone, unless they must have their widescreen TV filled, whatever the original ratio and there’s a couple of them around.
Best line from what I saw goes to Emily Watson as the sex-starved Jackie who cries out :
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL Check out VCI‘s and Film Four‘s Web sites.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.