The Movie: When I put this movie in my DVD player, I had no idea what it was about. Netflix had it listed as a "thriller" which turned out (in my opinion) to be entirely wrong. I didn't even know it came from a book. All I knew is that the name was familiar to me as a movie that would be worth seeing, so hey, why not just check the little box and have it arrive at my doorstep?

The story was pretty good. It wasn't mindblowingly spectacular, but it was worth seeing. I'd say it was more of a drama than a "thriller". Maybe I am getting the definitions wrong or something but I thought thrillers were supposed to be horror/suspense type movies... keeping you on the edge of your seat... that is definitely not the type of movie this was.

But the most striking thing to me was the cinematography -- each and every shot was beautifully composed... it wasn't like most movies where the camera is just there and there is this one cool shot... it seemed like every shot in this movie was a cool shot that was meant to do more than just convey information.

I gotta be honest and say that despite all the hubbub about widescreen aspect ratios "preserving the director's original vision", most of the movies that are out there today just don't have much vision in that department. Like I said, they mostly have just that one cool shot. That being said... this is one of those very rare movies that would truly be butchered by being forced into a 4:3 pan-and-scan frame.

The editing and sound design were interesting at times, with flashback type sequences being cut together with sound and images repeated and overlapping... I can't really describe it except to say that it resembled the way the mind recalls events from memory -- when we remember things that happened to us in the past we don't see them linearly from beginning to end like watching a surveillance video tape... anyway. I hope that's the effect they were going for because that's what I got out of it.

The DVD: The movie is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio anamorphic widescreen, and the film transfer is spectacular. A lot of the movie is shot with different lighting an d film effects that change the saturation or overall color cast of the image, and the DVD captures them perfectly... and it's so clean, I'd say that it was probably more enjoyable to watch on my TV than it would have been in the theater. The 5.1 soundtrack is mostly biased toward the front, but hey, this ain't no action movie.

The bonus material includes a behind the scenes featurette, theatrical trailer, production notes, bios, and scenes that were either deleted or edited differently in the final version of the film.

So yeah, overall, this was a movie worth watching if for nothing else than to look at just how beautiful it looks on the screen.