The Mirror Has Two Faces

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 - Dolby Digital City, DVD Teaser #2
Year Released	1996	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	121:21 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Filmographies Featurette - Behind The Scenes (8:14)
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (59:27)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Barbra Streisand
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Barbra Streisand Jeff Bridges Pierce Brosnan George Segal Mimi Rogers Brenda Vaccaro Lauren Bacall
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Marvin Hamlisch

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Portuguese Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly except for one blatant ad for Lawrence of Arabia

    My verdict? I really liked it. My wife really liked it as well. I suspect that this film will only appeal to a fairly narrow thirty-something demographic, and since we both fit into this demographic, we could relate to the issues that the film raised. My only quibble with this film was that Barbra Streisand was a little too "Barbra" at times - indeed there were one or two moments when it looked like she was about to burst into song. Fortunately, she didn't, as this would have ruined the movie. Her first on-screen appearance, in a packed lecture theatre was over-the-top and way too long, but after this her acting settled down and was much more believable.

    Barbra Streisand is Rose Morgan; 35, frumpy, unmarried, sister to the very attractive and thrice-married Claire (Mimi Rogers), daughter to the once-attractive Hannah (Lauren Bacall) and a Professor of English Literature at Columbia University.

    Jeff Bridges is Gregory Larkin; 30-something, unmarried, depressingly unsuccessful at relationships, a Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University and someone who brings a spectrum analyser to a classical music concert to enhance his enjoyment of the music. He comes to the conclusion that sex ruins a relationship as a result of several disastrous relationships, and so decides to seek out a woman that he does not feel attracted to sexually; Rose is dobbed in by her sister and fits the bill admirably.

    This movie explores the development, and ultimately the maturation, of their relationship. It also explores the maturation of both primary characters in learning to love both themselves and others. There are a lot of very funny moments in the movie, and a lot of poignant moments in the movie as the characters are allowed plenty of time to fully develop. Indeed, even very late in the movie it is unclear whether or not Gregory and Rose will end up together, or whether their grand experiment is a failure - Barbra Streisand has not always opted for the compulsory happy ending in her films in the past.

Video

    The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear. A few of the early scenes in the church with Pierce Brosnan were a little overbright, a little grainy and lacked shadow detail, but this looked like a specific issue with the way these scenes were shot, as reverse angles during these sequences were fine. Shadow detail was otherwise fine and there was no low level noise.

    The colours were beautifully rendered, with lots of attractive imagery in this film. Browns were deep and clear, and greens were vivid and lush. Skin tones were nicely rendered as well.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. There were no film-to-video artefacts seen. There were essentially no film artefacts seen.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed between Chapters 17 & 18, at 59:27. It is quite an abrupt layer change, with some background dialogue being cut off mid-sentence.

Audio

    Dialogue was usually quite clear and always easy to understand. There was some dialogue that sounded processed and out of context (most likely ADRed), but generally it sounded fine.

    There were no audio sync problems, though at times it looked as if some of the ADRed dialogue was on the verge of going out of sync, but it never quite got to that extreme.

    The score by Marvin Hamlisch was subtle and aptly suited the movie.

    The surround channels had limited use for music. Basically, this was a front soundstage movie.

    The .1 channel peeped occasionally to underline some of the music, but otherwise remained silent.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew Filmographies

Featurette, Behind The Scenes (8:14)

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Full Frame version

• Featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• Filmographies

    The video quality is superb, and is of reference quality.

    The audio quality is reasonable, but not great.

    The extras are reasonable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
21st August 1999