REVIEW — “The Lovers” Blu-ray

Like most Blu-Rays I review, The Lovers is a film that I caught in theaters earlier in the year and was happy to revisit once I got my copy in the mail. In case you’re unfamiliar with the film, it follows a not-so-happily married couple, Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts), who are secretly having an affair with other people during the day and come home at night, to their quietly boring lives. There are no intense fights between the two or a raging issue between them that causes them to sleep with other people – it simply stems from their lack of passion for each other. This is shaken when they magically fall back in love with each other, leading them to cheat on the people they were already cheating on each other with.

One of my favorite qualities of this film is how natural the direction and performances feel. There is hardly a single moment in this entire film that feels anything less than genuine – almost as if you’re peeking over the shoulder into an actual family. This isn’t a film that condemns the main characters too harshly, nor does it condone what they are doing. It just simply exhibits their actions, and the flawed humanity of these characters, in such an authentic way that only independent filmmaking can present. The exceptional performances from the cast really elevate an already solid film into a great one. Debra Winger is fantastically delightful and subtly funny as always, but I was really taken back by Tracy Letts’ comedic and dramatic capabilities here.

As for the Blu-Ray itself, I can compliment the quality of the transfer immensely, as I do with nearly every A24 film. They are always incredibly well shot, and the Blu-Rays tend to always recapture the same quality that I experienced in the theater. This is a film that I knew even before it was released wouldn’t find a huge audience in theaters, so I’m happy that we’ve gotten a quality Blu-Ray where it’ll hopefully find an even wider audience.

Blu-Ray Information 

• Subtitles: Spanish and English
• Feature Run Time: 94 minutes
• Blu-Ray Format: 1080p High Definition,  16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1) Presentation
• Blu-Ray Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• DVD Format: 16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1) Presentation
• DVD Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio

Special Features

• Audio Commentary with Writer and Director Azazel Jacobs
• “The Music of Romance: Scoring The Lovers“ Featurette
• “A Complicated Passion: Making The Lovers“ Featurette

Film Rating – 4/5

Blu-Ray Rating – 4/5