Setting up a taught drama using the disappearance of a fellow traveler, Wish You Were Here enters the DVD market. Targeting the suspense audience the film delves into a marital affair while dealing with a dark secret involving a trip to Cambodia. The feature direction by first timer Kieran Darcy-Smith keeps the plot moving with fair pacing dealing with the testy drama and a stellar cast.
Australian married couple Alice (Felicity Price) and Dave (Joel Edgerton) Flannery are having a wonderful time accompanying Alice’s sister Steph McKinney (Teresa Palmer) and her boyfriend Jeremy King (Antony Starr) on a vacation in southern Cambodia. They have had some gorgeous beach time and reveling in the delirious night life at their hotel parties and shopping in the nearby villages.
But, with most vacations it all has to come to an end, but this one has complications. Jeremy has gone missing and there’s no sign of him anywhere. Alice and Dave return to Australia and they keep in touch with Steph who hangs on in Cambodia waiting for some word on Jeremy. When things get heated at home over an indiscretion involving Dave, an investigation mounting by the Australian Police involving Jeremy’s drug dealings and Steph being psychologically overcome by the whole ordeal the plot starts to quickly accelerate to its revealing finale.
The movie mounts a lot of suspense from several issues born by the trip to Cambodia and writer/director Kieran Darcy-Smith does an admirable job keeping the tension high throughout. Feeding his audience bits and pieces using flashbacks of the events in Cambodia during the vacation interlaced with the present day problems induced by Jeremy’s disappearance, Darcy-Smith adds a few twists to his story to keep viewers off guard. The ploy works quite well, but loses some credibility when he spreads out too many clues that actually confuse rather than challenge the audience’s mental dexterity. Putting together the story’s complex ending is a very difficult task and I’m not too sure he accomplished it.
The fine acting by the well known performers bolsters the watch ability of the film with Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby) and Felicity Price taking most of the dialogue. It’s their show and the two take most of the screen time. Joel’s the center of all the disorder with his Dave being the catalyst that spawns the family conflict. With the marriage slowly coming apart it’s the terrific acting by Price who crafts Alice into a strong willed wife. She wants to accept Dave’s faults and failings in dealing with Jeremy’s disappearance and his impulsiveness while under the influence. Her Alice is the glue that holds the two characters together when all gets sorted out.
Two extra features are available on the DVD they are very good.
BONUS FEATURES
- “Behind the Scenes” Actors, director, production designer and other crew members talk about filming in Cambodia. Some of the highlights include a very funny Elephant story, the husband and wife team of Kieran Darcy-Smith and Felicity Price go over the script and budget, and the filming in the Cambodian ghetto.
- “Interviews” The following cast and crew contributed interviews about getting involved with the production, the script, sets, cinematography, budget, post and their characters. Alex Holmes (Production Designer), Angie Fielder (Producer), Jules O’Loughlin (Director of Photography), Kieran Darcy-Smith (Writer/Director), Jason Ballantine (Editor), Actors- Anthony Starr, Joel Edgerton, Felicity Price and Teresa Palmer.
The video quality on DVD is good, but I’m sure the colorful and splendid Cambodian waterfront and marketplace would have been a lot better seeing it on Blu-ray. The DVD has a widescreen letterbox look with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
The audio is very good using either the Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 provided. All the dialogue is understandable with the sprinkles of Cambodian language delivered in English Subtitles.
Wish You Were Here has been rated R for language, some drug content, brief sexuality and violence. Just as a suggestion, you may want to watch the film a second time to see what clues you missed and make sure there wasn’t another indiscretion that didn’t come to light. I missed a few things in the beginning because my ‘importance’ meter was not taking in some key dialogue.
Specifications and additional film information:
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Anthony Starr and Felicity Price
Directed by: Kieran Darcy-Smith
MPAA Rating: R for language, some drug content, brief sexuality and violence
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr 29 min
Video Release Date: September 10, 2013
Original Film Release Date: June 7, 2013
Language: English
Format: DVD
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Widescreen 16 x 9 (1.78:1)
Subtitles: English SDH
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: Entertainment One
