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Dom Robinson reviews

A Life Less Ordinary

Distributed by

Polygram

A Life Less Ordinary takes two characters whose lives are on opposite sides of the track, but in another way they couldn't be any more similar as both are looking for a life less ordinary...

Ewan McGregor plays Robert, a poor janitor working for a big company who don't value him in his job, while Cameron Diaz is Celine, a young rich girl living it up at Daddy's expense. The angels in heaven, portrayed by Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo, while being supervised by the angel Gabriel (the ever-reliable Dan Hedaya), are given the mission to make sure that Robert and Celine get it together despite their differences, but the answer becomes for the former to kidnap the latter and demand a ransom.

What starts with potential soon turns into something completely less worthy as the pair fall in love and it turns into a typical kidnap 'comedy' of two people fighting the odds to stay together, despite the fact they never should have been introduced in the first place, the whole concept being such an unlikely one ever to happen in real life.

The picture quality exhibits the same problems as experienced with The Big Lebowski, in that some scenes have obvious artifacts on view in the form of glitches onscreen. It happens where stationary pixels onscreen are next to moving ones - the method used for compressing the data on DVDs - but it doesn't work quite well. Most other times, small artifacts are noticeable even from the normal viewing distance.

The average bitrate is a fine 4.91Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s and the disc is 16:9-enhanced for widescreen televisions allowing 33% extra resolution. The film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 1.85:1 and open-matte 4:3.

"But the widescreen version is 1.85:1 ? I saw it at the cinema in 2.35:1 !"

If this is what's on your mind, note that the film was shot in Super 35 which permits a 2.35:1 ratio to be composed and has been used on the NTSC Laserdisc and the forthcoming Region 1 DVD, but here the matted is opened up to 1.85:1 without losing side picture information.

The sound is comes in Dolby Digital 5.1. It doesn't exactly jump out at you but is fine for what it needs to do and includes a number of good songs from Beck (Deadweight), Orbital (The Box), Faithless (Don't Leave), Oasis (Round Are Way) and of course Ash (A Life Less Ordinary).

Extras :

Chapters :

There are 20 chapters to choose from during the 99 minutes of the film, but no theatrical trailer is to be found.

Languages & Subtitles :

German and English are the order of the day for both cases, the sound being in Dolby Digital 5.1. English subtitles give you a "deaf and hard of hearing" option which means that any major sound effects are also included within square brackets and displayed onscreen.

Interviews :

Well, more like random soundbites with a brief resume beforehand of what you're about to hear comments on from the principal cast members as well as the writer, producer and director Danny Boyle. The On set interviews option is a collage of chat mixed in with clips from the film resulting in what looks like an extended trailer.

Behind the scenes :

This section only lasts three minutes and plays out like a B-Roll that can be found on Wag The Dog and The Mask but there's no comments during the clips and they're rather dull ones at that.

Menu :

The menu is static and silent with options given at first for the language required from the same choice of two as for everything else on this disc and then for the film ratio.

Along with The Big Lebowski and Hard Rain, this is one of the first few DVDs to contain both picture formats on the **same side of the disc**. Usually, releases containing both versions will be on opposite sides of the disc but these break the trend. It's a more welcome move, but on a technical note, I'd rather the fullscreen version be scrapped altogether if it means the widescreen version remaining can benefit from higher bitrate, resulting in a better picture.

To me, A Life Less Ordinary should simply have been renamed Lifeless, but if you liked it, aren't bothered about the extras and can put up with an average picture, then take a look, but it might be better to rent it first before buying.

NOTE: At the time of writing you may have trouble finding this DVD in the shops. The title has been recalled because it breaks the VPRC's packaging rules of not displaying the BBFC certificate on the front cover. Whether all outlets return their DVDs remains to be seen. 

FILM	 		: *
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ***½
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: **
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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