Born Romantic (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Deleted Scenes Interviews-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	92:10
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:38)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Kane
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	David Morrissey Jimi Mistry Catherine McCormack Adrian Lester John Thomson Paddy Considine Craig Ferguson Jane Horrocks Olivia Williams Kenneth Cranham Ian Hart
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Simon Boswell

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Born Romantic is an interesting romantic comedy full of seemingly disconnected episodes and characters strung together with a few common threads. It reminds me of the work of director P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) with a few interesting twists of its own.

    The setting is London, at a salsa club, in a taxi, and various other locations including a cafe cum taxi booking office, and various residences - all looking suitably grungy and dilapidated.

    The characters include Frankie (Craig Ferguson), who thinks of himself as a latter day Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin combined, separated from his ex-wife but nonetheless still living in the same house (whilst exchanging venomous insults with each other). Frankie meets Eleanor (Olivia Williams) - a pretty but cynical and commitment-phobic girl - at the salsa club and tries vainly to court her.

    In the meantime, Fergus (David Morrissey) is an ex-musician who has recently arrived in London. His mission is to find Mo (Jane Horrocks) - a girl he jilted eight years ago but belatedly now realises is the true love of his life.

    Finally, we have the bizarre relationship between Eddie (Jimi Mistry) - a petty and somewhat inept thief - and Jocelyn (Catherine McCormack) - a hypochondriac grave tender.

    The three couples do not know each other and for the most part do not interact with one another except they all frequent the salsa club and each of them has at one point or another been a passenger in a taxi driven by Jimmy (Adrian Lester).

    Jimmy acts as both Cupid and some sort of guardian angel for these confused young people, but he himself harbours a personal grief - his wife died two years ago and he still has not been able to let go of the pain.

    The film flits between showing short vignettes around each character plus an amusing series of conversations between two taxi drivers (John Thompson and Ian Hart) as they wrestle with subjects like misogynism, women and love, loneliness and respect.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 Enhanced, which is presumably the intended aspect ratio.

    The scenes inside the salsa club are extremely reddish and look soft and lacking in contrast. I suspect this is either intentional on the part of the filmmakers or a characteristic of the film stock. The exterior scenes are quite pleasant and the night scenes feature acceptable black levels and shadow detail.

    I did not notice any significant film, video or MPEG compression artefacts beyond a few pixelizations here and there, and I think it is a combination of the relative newness of the film print and the fact that the relatively short film (92:10) is spread across two layers of an RSDL disc.

    There is an English for the Hearing Impaired subtitle track which I turned on occasionally to try and understand the dialogue!

    The layer change occurs at 68:38 - it is at a reasonable place but does take a while to execute.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 5.l (448 Kb/s).

    This is a pleasant enough audio track, but very front centred and dialogue focused. Incidentally, I had some difficulty understanding some of the lines in the dialogue, especially when the actors mumble their lines in a thick accent, and I had to resort to turning on the subtitle track.

    Needless to say, salsa music features prominently in this track, and the music is mixed with some reverb and ambience going into the rear channels. Apart from that, though, the rear channels are not often utilised. The original music score is by Simon Boswell.

    I did not really notice significant use of the subwoofer track. Indeed, the subwoofer didn't even bother waking up during the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The disc includes a limited number of extras, including deleted scenes and cast & crew interviews.

Menu

    The menus are static but 16x9 enhanced.

Theatrical Trailer (1:42)

    This is presented in pan & scan 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kb/s) audio track. It gives us brief introductions to the characters.

Deleted Scenes (6:42)

    These are additional scenes (presented without any titling or commentary) in 1.85:1 letterboxed (no 16x9 enhancement):

• Jimmy and Eleanor in the taxi
• Frankie in his nightclub
• Eddie and his accomplice planning another chloroform attack in a toilet cubicle
• Mo and her new beau
• The three girls engaged in a bit of girl talk in front of the mirror in the toilet
• Fergus and Mo at the salsa club
• Jimmy and Eleanor talking in the Kismet Cafe
• Jimmy persuades and takes Eleanor to see Frankie

    There are a number of analogue video glitches present in the transfer.

Interviews-Cast & Crew

    This features a number of interview video segments, presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kb/s), of the following:

• Jane Horrocks ("Mo") (3:20)
• David Kane (writer and director) (5:42)
• Olivia Williams ("Eleanor") (3:47)
• Craig Ferguson ("Frankie") (4:32)
• Catherine McCormack ("Jocelyn") (2:52)
• David Morrissey ("Fergus") (3:52)

    We can hear the interviewer's questions and comments but not see her.

    The Region 4 (currently rental only, but will be available for sell-through later in the year) version of this disc misses out on;

• 1.33:1 version
• Additional foreign language subtitle tracks

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Deleted Scenes
• Cast and crew interviews

    Given the presence of additional extras on the Region 4 disc, my vote is with the local disc on this one (once it is available as a sell-through title).

    Born Romantic is a quirky romantic comedy set in London featuring three would-be couples, a salsa club, and a taxi service. The video and audio transfers are decent, and the extras include deleted scenes, interviews and a trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall