French Kiss (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	106:15 (Case: 111)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lawrence Kasdan
Studio Distributor	Magna Home Entertainment	Starring	Meg Ryan Kevin Kline Timothy Hutton Jean Reno Francois Cluzet Susan Anbeh
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	James Newton Howard

    Meg Ryan plays Kate. Kate is afraid of flying. She is also somewhat racist, small-minded, and a klutz. The racism may not be hers - there are several racial stereotypes in this movie, making me wonder if it is the director overplaying things to get a fish-out-of-water effect. Maybe the director felt a need to be heavy-handed because the racism is not as obvious as skin colour - it is directed towards the French. Perhaps the most evident is the presumption that French men have stubble on their faces at all times. Even the hotel concierge has beard shadow. I guess it's understandable, though; everyone knows all French people smoke too much, are very rude, and continually test nuclear weapons in the South Pacific (in case you're wondering, that was sarcasm).

    Kate is a teacher. She is in Canada, and in the process of getting her Canadian citizenship (she is from the USA) because she is engaged to a Canadian. He is Charlie (Timothy Hutton), a doctor. They have everything organised for their life together - they are even considering purchasing a house before the marriage. He tries to persuade her to come to a medical conference in Paris with him. She doesn't want to leave Canada because it is a condition of her citizenship application that she stay while it is being processed. She's also terrified of the flight. In the end, he goes without her.

    Then she gets a phone call. He tells her he's met a wonderful girl (a "goddess") called Juliette (Susan Anbeh), and they are in love - obviously he's a jerk, but she doesn't see it that way. She wants him back. Next thing you know she's on a flight to Paris, with an obnoxious Frenchman (Kevin Kline) sitting beside her. He tries to engage her in conversation, and rapidly discovers her prejudices. He does manage to distract her from her fear of flying by accusing her of having sexual hang-ups (a novel approach, certainly).  

    Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline - he is very comfortable with French, and his accent is convincing) is smuggling, and he is concerned about being searched on arrival in Paris. He conceals his package in her bag without her knowledge. He intends to collect it from her the moment they clear Customs, but he bumps into a police inspector, Jean-Paul (Jean Reno), with whom he has a long history, and sees Kate head off in a taxi.

    Around now we can guess roughly where things are going, and it becomes clearer as the film progresses. But hey, it is a romantic comedy - you expect some predictability. I must say, though, that I liked the ending, because it does not rely on an unbelievable coincidence, for once.

    There's lots of glorious scenery. They have emphasised their location shooting with lots of French icons - we see the Eiffel Tower repeatedly, the Arc De Triomphe, and so forth. Shame we can't appreciate the scenery in full widescreen glory.

    I'm glad I gave this one a second chance - it is better than I thought. It's not a piece of film art, but it is pleasant.

Video

    There are a lot of films I've been waiting to see arrive on DVD, and some of them have just been released. To my horror, they have been released as pan-and-scan monstrosities; I suspect that they've been made from VHS masters. What upsets me most is that their release in this butchered form means that they are unlikely to be released properly. This was not one of those films, but it well could have been - it has received the same treatment. 

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced; it looks like a VHS master was used as the source. At the end, we get a zoom out to what looks like a 2.35:1 non-16x9 enhanced picture so we can see all of the credits - the only moment when we can appreciate the scenery properly is with the credits scrolling over it.

    The image is soft, but reasonably clear. Shadow detail is fairly good. There's no significant low level noise.

    Colour is fairly well-saturated, but never reaches the intensity we deserve.

    There is plenty of aliasing, and quite a bit of background shimmer - there's a huge example of shimmer at 62:24 on a splash of flowers. There aren't a lot of visible film artefacts, and they are generally small - see 16:17 for an example.

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is single-sided and single-layered, which means there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is a single soundtrack - English Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded. There's nothing much in the way of a stereo spread - the soundtrack could easily be mono.

    Dialogue is easy to understand, even with the accents. Audio sync is fine.

    The score is credited to James Newton Howard; it's nothing special, but it does the job. There are some French songs to add atmosphere, but the one that strikes home is La Vie en Rose, sung by Louis Armstrong, rather than Piaf - good listening. Later in the credits we get to hear Kevin Kline singing in a French accent - he is surprisingly decent.

    There's nothing for the surrounds, nor the subwoofer, but they're not missed - this film is very much dialogue-driven.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static, but has songs playing under it. The only entries on the menu are Play Movie and Scene Selections.

    This movie is about to be released in Region 1 as a widescreen transfer, unfortunately not 16x9 enhanced. Even without 16x9 enhancement, the proper aspect ratio is preferable to a pan-and-scan effort.

    French Kiss is a decent movie, treated shoddily for its transfer to DVD.

    The video quality is acceptable, for a pan-and-scan hack.

    The audio quality is fine.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall