Sharp Objects (Blu-ray) (2018)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama/Thriller	Featurette
Rating
Year Of Production	2018
Running Time	421
RSDL / Flipper	No/No Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jean-Marc Vallee
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Amy Adams Patricia Clarkson Chris Messina Eliza Scanlen
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 French dts 5.1 Spanish dts 2.0 Catalan dts 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French Catalan Spanish Danish Finnish Norwegian Swedish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Gillian Flynn is an American novelist whose works have been very successful both as books and as television and movie productions. Previous novels of hers, Gone Girl and Dark Places have been made into feature films, although the second one did not really trouble the box office scorers too much. Gone Girl on the other hand was very successful at the box office taking over $300m worldwide. The latest adaptation of one of her novels is this HBO limited series (mini-series to his mates), Sharp Objects. This was actually her first novel published in 2006. Her fourth book, The Grownup was released in 2015.

    The story here revolves around the small town of Wind Gap, Missouri which is home to around 2000 people. The town's industry is dominated by hog farms. The current head of the family who have always run the local hog industry is Adora Crellin (Patricia Clarkson) who took over the family business after her father passed away. She is manipulative, difficult and controlling to both people in the town and to her own family. She is married to Alan Crellin (Henry Czerny) who does what he is told and believes everything Adora tells him. He is her second husband and is the father of her youngest daughter, Amma (Eliza Scanlen). Amma is 13 and a bit of a tearaway, roaming the town with her friends at night and getting involved in drugs and alcohol. Recently, two young girls have disappeared and then been found murdered.

    The mystery draws two people to the town, a big city detective sent to investigate, Richard Willis (Chris Messina) - much to the annoyance of the local Sheriff, Bill Vickery (Matt Craven) - and Adora's prodigal daughter from her first marriage, Camille Preaker (Amy Adams). Camille has a very difficult relationship with her mother and has a long history of alcoholism and mental instability. After some time in a mental institution due to her self-mutilation, Camille is working in Kansas City as a journalist and her well-meaning boss, Frank Curry (Miguel Sandoval), pushes her to return to her home town and write some stories about the case. She reluctantly agrees which means she needs to interact with her mother, step-father and half-sister, none of whom she has seen recently. As she and the detective investigate they uncover the town's dark secrets and memories of Camille's childhood and the death of her own sister, Marian, years before are brought back to the foreground. There are many suspects including one of the girl's brothers, John Keene (Taylor John Smith), his controlling girlfriend, Ashley (Madison Davenport) and the other girl's father, Bob Nash (Will Chase), however much more is going on.

    This is a high quality production as you would expect from HBO. It is well paced, atmospheric and beautifully shot. It was directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, director of Big Little Lies and Dallas Buyers Club. He won an Emmy for his work on Big Little Lies. This series won a Golden Globe at the recent ceremony for the wonderful work of Patricia Clarkson as the damaged, unhinged and controlling Adora. Amy Adams was also nominated. The three female leads are all excellent in their roles, these two plus Eliza Scanlen as Amma. The music used is evocative and significantly enhances the atmosphere of the show, which makes you feel the humidity of the location especially when combined with the lighting and the cinematography. The show is quite intense and not a feel-good story. The characters are all damaged in some way, some more than others.

    There are 8 episodes spread over 2 discs with each episode running around 1 hour.

    Highly recommended.

Video

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio, in 1080p. It is encoded using AVC.

    This film looks good on Blu-ray with good colours, nice clarity, sharpness and detail and a generally blemish free presentation.

    There are subtitles available in English for the Hearing Impaired which are clear and easy to read. There are also subtitles in French, Spanish, Castellano, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The discs contain an English soundtrack in DTS HD-MA 5.1, French & Castellano DTS 5.1 and Spanish DTS 2.0. The soundtrack is mostly front focused with some ambiance provided in the surrounds by music and the occasional street sound.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand on most occasions.

    The subwoofer added a surprising amount to proceedings with quite a lot of usage by the music and with tension sounds.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu includes music.

Creating Wind Gap (5:10)

    This show seems to be available globally in the same format.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall