- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: PG-13
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: Miramax/Lionsgate
- Blu-ray Release Date: October 4, 2011
- List Price: $14.99
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Purchase The Cider House Rules on Blu-ray at CD Universe
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Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
John Irving is one of my favorite authors. His novel A Prayer for Owen Meany has been at the top of my least of books worthy of rereading for years. He is a folksy and topical, wholly American writer who captures the subtleties of the American dialect and culture with great poignancy. With that being said, The Cider House Rules, one his more difficult novels, is one that touches on adoption, abortion, and the adherence to rules in a society spinning out of control, constantly hitting against the order of the rules it purports to hold up.
If the novel is subtle and complex and somewhat difficult, yet ultimately fulfilling, the film, for which Irving also write the screenplay, is the near polar opposite. The scope of this review is too confined to go into great detail about the differences between the source and the film and films are their own entities ultimately, but lets just say that in his screenplay, Irving lapses into a mushy, and almost preachy admonition on the world at large and the difficulties that an innocent might have in navigating its hypocrisies.
The story is told through Homer (Toby Maguire), an orphan in a small Maine town during World War II, who is never adopted, so he grows up in an orphanage under the tutelage of Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine), a gynecologist who also performs illegal abortions. He passes all of his medical knowledge down to Homer, who grows up to be a highly skilled, yet unlicensed physician. But Homer yearn to see the outside world, so when Candy Kendall (Charlize Theron) arrives at the orphanage with her boyfriend, Lt. Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) seeking an abortion, Homer takes the opportunity to leave with them to go work at Wally’s family owned apple orchard, living in the cider house with the black migrant workers. There he spends the growing season learning of life outside the sheltering walls of his orphanage, and falling in love with Candy, whose boyfriend has gone away to war. The question is, will Homer turn his back on the orphanage and the life that Dr. Larch had planned out for him, which is to take over running the place, or will he remain in this new, complex world, harsh, difficult, and new.
The Cider House Rules is a quaint film, but it tries too hard at times to get a rise out of the viewer, to tug at the ol’ heartstrings, so to speak. There is a lack of subtlety in this screenplay that makes much of the film’s twists rather obvious, even of you haven’t read the book. For instance, in one particular scene where the subject of incest is broached, it is meant to be a shock that one young lady has been impregnated by her father, but it would take the thickest of viewers not to have figured that out long before it is “revealed.” I hate to say it, but this might have been better left in the hands of another screenwriter rather than Irving himself.
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The Cider House Rules does suffer from some occasional film judder, but for the most part this is one of the more solid Miramax releases from Lionsgate to come around recently. The AVC encodement looks clean, has natural flesh tones and nuanced shadow details. There is little apparent source damage or video noise.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
This comes with the rare 5.0 mix in a DTS-HD Master Audio lossless encodement. It offers clean dialogue and a fair amount of atmospherics in the surround channels. High frequencies are natural and there’s good motion across the front.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
The supplements here are underwhelming. There are no new HD features included on the disc and the best feature, the audio commentary, is rather bland, but at least it does offer insight from author/screenwriter John Irving.
The supplements provided with this release:
- Audio Commentary with Director Lasse Hallström, Screenwriter John Irving, and Producer Richard N. Gladstein
- The Cider House Rules: The Making of An American Classic (1.33:1; 480i/60; 00:22:09)
- Deleted Scenes (1.33:1; 480i/60; 00:08:48)
- Theatrical Trailer (1.33:1; 480i/60; 00:02:31)
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3.5/5]
A quaint and at times pleasurable film is ruined by its overly facile approach to complex issues that require far more subtlety. The Blu-ray release does, at least, look quite pleasing to the eyes.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product align=”right”]B005DCJ1J6[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com
Purchase The Cider House Rules on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
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