Ciarán Hinds reflects on a chance at happiness in Life During Wartime.
The Criterion Collection released the 2009 comedy-drama film Life During Wartime, by the always-provocative writer-director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse), on Blu-ray
Exploring contemporary American existence and the nature of forgiveness, the movie functions as a distorted mirror image of Solondz’s acclaimed 1998 dark comedy movie Happiness, with its emotionally stunted characters now groping for the possibility of change in a post-9/11 world.
Happiness’s original New Jersey setting is transposed to sunny Florida, but the biggest twist is that new actors fill the roles originated in the earlier film — including Shirley Henderson (Topsy-Turvy), Allison Janney (American Beauty) and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) as alarmingly dissimilar sisters, and a haunting Ciarán Hinds (The Eclipse) as a reformed pedophile.
Decidedly for very specific tastes (like most of Solondz’s films), Life During Wartime received a limited release in U.S. theaters last summer following a year of film festival screenings and a theatrical sprinkling across Europe and South America.
The Blu-ray and DVD feature a new digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Ed Lachman, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition. They carry the list prices of $39.95 and $29.95, respectively.
Here’s a list of the special features that will appear on the discs:
- Ask Todd, an audio Q&A with director Todd Solondz
- Making “Life During Wartime,” a new documentary featuring interviews with actors Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy and Michael Kenneth Williams, and on-set footage of the actors and crew
- new video piece in which Lachman discusses his work on the film
- original theatrical trailer
- booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Sterritt
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