Henry Miles (Stephen Rea) is a conventional high society business man in london in the late 30’s, when the war is taking hold.

Henry seems to be very much in love with his stunning wife Sarah (Julianne Moore), but he has no sexual desire for her. Afraid that because of this his wife is having an affair, he turns to his old friend Maurice Bendix (Ralph Fiennes). He is unaware though that Maurice was for a long time a secret lover of his wifes.

Henry is anxious to employ a detective to follow her movements but is unsure how to approach the situation. His friend bendix offers to go a detective as a jealous lover and have her followed.

The story continues to flashbacks of the affair between Bendrix and sarah and we learn why she finally left him.

I won’t spoil the story even though it is very predictable, but just to say that you’ll be amazed to find out why Sarah left Bendrix.

So how does the transfer hold up ??

VIDEO
The 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen transfer is nothing short of reference quality. I looked very hard and couldn’t find any faults whatsoever with this transfer.

The entire transfer is perfectly sharp and clear and the detail is sometimes breathtaking.
There are no Mpeg artefacts, no ailiasing, edge enhacement and only a few small film artefacts.
The colour palette is exquisite and is superbly created for the era of the film. There are still lots of nice bright colours to compliment the basically muted colour pallette, and they are included brilliantly and in no way clash with the images at all. I am very impressed with the use of colour here.

Shadow detail is great and there is no grain at all.
The layer change is also very good and almost impossible to detect.
Excellent transfer all round!

AUDIO
The Dolby 5.1 audio track is also very good. I couldn’t really find any technical faults with it, I just found that it didn’t have an impressive nature to it. Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand, aside from one whispering scene.

The surround channels were used frequently but didn’t have a lot of impact on the film. The base channel is generally used for subtle effects and musical support but does kick in every now and then.

The score from michael Nyman is expressive and fits the mood and era of the film well.

EXTRAS
- Theatrical Trailer
- Cast and Crew Filmographies
- Cast and Crew Biographies
- Dolby City Tralier
- Featurette, Making of: this is a nice little making of doco but I found it very short at around 7 minutes.
- Audio Commentary: Director Neil Jordan. Not a bad commentary but certainly there was nothing exciting revealed about the film. I actually found this a little droning at times.
- Audio Commentary: Julianne Moore. This is somewhat a better commentary and is not a continual voice over but more some insights into Julianne’s character and some more interesting info on the makingof the film.
- Isolated Musical Score: I didn’t really sit and listen to this in it’s entireity but had it on a background music while I worked and I found it very soothing.

OVERALL
This is a good film, which at times becomes a little boring. I would still recommend it though. You can’t beat this video transfer.