She's the One (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Director Featurette Music Video Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	92:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Edward Burns
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Cameron Diaz Edward Burns John Mahoney Mike McGlone Jennifer Aniston Maxine Bahns
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Tom Petty

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Smoking	Yes, apparently the actors all smoke in real life too
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Mr. Fitzpatrick (John Mahoney) loves spending time on his boat with his two sons: Mickey (Edward Burns), a happy-go-lucky New York City cab driver and Francis, his younger brother. Francis is unhappy, despite being a successful Wall Street something or other and being married to lovely wife Renee (Jennifer Aniston).

    One day Mickey picks up Hope (Maxine Bahns) in his cab, to take her to the airport. Somehow, she convinces him to drive her all the way to New Orleans to attend a wedding. They get married within 24 hours, and return back to New York, where their impulsive marriage becomes the topic of conversation at the Fitzpatrick clan. Francis is annoyed that Mickey did not invite him to be his best man. Renee is envious that the new couple seem to be so happy together, in contrast to her failing marriage with Francis (they don't even have sex any more, and lately she has taken to pleasuring herself with the help of a vibrator). Mr. Fitzpatrick is suspicious of Hope and thinks she may be an illegal immigrant trying to gain a Green Card.

    Francis is currently cheating on his wife by having an affair with Heather Davis (Cameron Diaz). Ironically, Heather used to be Mickey's fiancée, until he came home one day to find her naked with another man, but neither brother knows this. When they do, sparks fly as the competitive spirit of the two siblings comes into play. Pretty soon, both brothers reach a turning point in their relationships with their women: Francis has to choose between staying with Renee or divorcing her and marrying Heather, and Mickey has to decide whether he should follow his new bride Hope to Paris where she has been offered a study scholarship.

    There is also a cameo role by Amanda Peet as Renee's sister Molly.

    This film had so much potential, and yet ended up being disappointing. Written by, directed by, and starring Edward Burns, fresh from the success of The Brothers McMullen, and co-starring two actors from his previous movie: Mike McGlone and Maxine Bahns, the film also features Jennifer Aniston in her debut film role and the undeniable physical assets of Cameron Diaz. It even includes John Mahoney essentially reprising his role from Frasier. This certainly sounds like a formula for guaranteed success.

    So why did the audience stay away in droves? Casting Jennifer Aniston in hindsight may not have been such a good idea - many people including myself expected a film version of Friends and this is anything but, although there is some witty dialogue. Billing the film as a romantic comedy also turned out to be a mistake, because this film can probably be more accurately described as a sequel to The Brothers McMullen. It continues the exploration of Irish American Catholics and the peculiarities of their upbringing which affect their relationships with women.

    There's no doubt that Mr. Fitzpatrick is incredibly misogynistic: in the film we never see his wife and it's obvious that she does not play a big role in his and his sons' lives. He also seems to have a very peculiar habit of continually referring to his sons using the feminine gender, as if this was the worst possible insult he can give them. He continually refers to them as "ladies" and by female names like Barbara and Deirdre.

    While guys may think this is very funny, I find it rather off-putting and mildly offensive. And that's the problem with billing this as a romantic comedy - there is almost nothing in this film that a female audience can relate to. The female roles are no more than cameo characters, and this is almost exclusively a male relationships movie - and I suspect males are probably more interested in watching action movies than this.

Video

    This transfer is presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    It's not a bad transfer, and I did not notice many artefacts, film or video. In particular, the film source is relatively clean and free of grain, and I did not detect any video artefacts. The relatively short duration of the film means that it comfortably fits onto a single layer of a single sided disc without resorting to high MPEG compression levels.

    Some Region 1 reviews have commented on the excessive use of edge enhancement in the video transfer. Not having a copy of the Region 1 disc handy, I am unable to comment on this, but I did not detect any artefacts resulting from edge enhancement in the Region 4 release.

    The transfer seems a touch soft, but still quite detailed. Black levels are good, and colours, whilst not exactly grabbing one's attention with brilliance, seem quite natural and not underdone.

    In addition to English, there are a number of other foreign language subtitle tracks present on the disc. I turned on the English subtitle track briefly just to verify its presence.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this disc, both in English; a Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S soundtrack (384 Kb/s), and a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded Audio Commentary track (96 Kb/s). I listened to both tracks.

    The main audio track is quite pleasant to listen to and is obviously very dialogue-focused. As a result, the film soundtrack is very front driven and I did not notice a lot of rear surround activity. I also did not notice many directional Foley effects, but then the film does not really need them.

    There are no issues with dialogue intelligibility or audio synchronisation.

    The music score by Tom Petty follows the Lazy Man's Guide to Writing Film Music: write 1-2 original songs, then scatter and repeat them all throughout the film in various instrumental arrangements. The theme song of course is classic Tom Petty: fairly up-beat and infectious.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    This disc features a reasonable collection of extras.

Menu

    The menus are 16x9 enhanced and feature background audio.

Audio Commentary

    This is a director's commentary track featuring Edward Burns. He talks about this as being his second film, but it feels like his first "real" film because after the success of the low-budget The Brothers McMullen he actually had a US$3m budget to work with (they were willing to offer him $10-12m but he got intimidated). He keeps comparing the making of this film with his previous film. He doesn't really talk that much in the commentary track, so most of the time we get to hear the film soundtrack instead.

Featurette (8:08)

    This is your standard promotional featurette, juxtaposing excerpts from the film with behind the scenes footage and interviews with:

• Edward Burns (writer, director and "Mickey")
• John Mahoney ("Mr. Fitzpatrick")
• Cameron Diaz ("Heather")
• Tom Petty (music composer)
• Jennifer Aniston ("Renee")
• Maxine Barns ("Hope")
• Mike McGlone ("Francis")

    The featurette is presented in 1.33:1. Surprisingly, excepts from the film are presented in Pan & Scan but a brief interview with Tom Petty is in widescreen letterboxed (incidentally, this interview segment is also rather "fuzzy").

Music Video (5:32)

    This is a music video of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers singing "Walls" from the soundtrack album. It is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0. The opening is in black and white as Tom enters a circus tent but gradually becomes colorized and ends with some pretty psychedelic Indian-influenced colours.

Theatrical Trailer (2:33)

    This is the US theatrical trailer presented in Pan & Scan and Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Pan & Scan version (some Region 1 reviews indicate that this is actually an full frame/open matte transfer)
• Additional trailers and TV spots
• French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround audio track and Spanish subtitle track

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Additional foreign language subtitle tracks

    Both versions seem to contain similar features, and there is no compelling reason to prefer one over the other.

    She's The One unfortunately wasn't the one for me. A quirky New York City romantic comedy about two Irish American Catholic brothers and their relationships with women, it had a lot of potential and a great cast but fails to deliver. The video transfer is excellent but a bit soft, the audio transfer is acceptable but nothing special. There is a reasonable number of extras included, including a director's commentary track.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall