THE MOVIE

Heather Graham plays Alice, a young American woman who lives in London. She leads a comfortable life, she has a successful career designing CD-ROMs and websites for corporate clients and she shares an apartment with her loving boyfriend Jake (Jason Hughes).

Things are going along well for them both. However, one morning on the way to work she locks eyes with a mysterious handsome man called Adam (Joseph Fiennes) and before lunch time the two of them are naked on the floor of his apartment. She only finds out his name the following day when she buys his new book in a local bookstore.

The same day Alice tells Jake that she has met someone else and that she’s leaving him. Before long the couple are married, but something just isn’t right about this guy. What is he hiding from Alice and why does he keep the cupboard locked? Alice starts receiving anonymous notes warning her about Adam. She starts digging deeper in an attempt to uncover the truth. What is Adam’s secret…

Killing Me Softly is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was written by author Nicci French. It was adapted to the screen by Kara Lindstrom and directed by Chen Kaige. The film also stars Natascha McElhone (Ronin) as Adam’s sister Deborah, Ulrich Thomsen as his friend Klaus, Yasmin Bannerman as Joanna and Amy Robbins as Sylvie.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Killing Me Softly is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen (16:9 enhanced) and it is also auto pan and scan encoded. The level of detail is pretty darn good. This is evident right at the start of the film, there are some absolutely glorious shots of some mountain climbers making their way up an alpine slope. The contrast between the white snow and rich blue ski during this scene also looks great. It’s a bit of a different story when the camera gets up close to the action though, with a bit of grain creeping in.

Shadow detail is also rather good. For example, the night time alleyway scene during chapter 2 (24.55 minutes) looks great, as does the scene in Adam’s flat during chapter 7 (70 minutes). This film comes with a quite a bit of film grain, but thankfully it is only really noticeable during the scenes that have light coloured backgrounds. I couldn’t find any MPEG artefacts.

Audio:

This DVD features two soundtracks, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 channel soundtrack and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack. The 5.1 channel soundtrack is reasonably good and there are some nice surround effects to be heard. Some examples include the train station ambience during chapter 1 (4 minutes), the foot chase sequence during chapter 3 (32 minutes), the pigeons and thunder during chapter 4 (33.45 and 44.07 minutes, respectively) and the flare gun during chapter 9 (89.15 minutes).

Low frequency output was also okay, especially during the opening scene, where you can hear the dull thud of the boots and picks as the hit the hard ice. Dialogue was clearly audible at all stages of the film and there didn’t appear to be any audio synch problems.

The musical score by Patrick Doyle is quite good, it’s pretty soft during the first 30 minutes, but becomes increasingly louder and epic as the story progresses. It is quite effective during moments of tension such as the foot chase sequence in chapter 3 (32 minutes) and when Adam arrives home during chapter 6 (57 minutes).

THE EXTRAS

Trailer
What if your desires unlocked hidden secrets? These words appear during the trailer and get slightly cropped as the trailer is presented in 1.33: full frame (pan and scan). It features Dolby Digital 2.0 channel sound and running time is 2.01 minutes.

Featurette
The featurette runs for around 5 minutes and it contains interviews with cast members Heather Graham, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone as well as director Chen Kaige and script wrier Kara Lindstrom. The featurette also includes behind the scenes footage and excerpts from the film. It is presented in 1.33:1 full frame.

Behind the Scenes
Here you’ll find approximately 9 minutes of genuine behind the scenes footage. This material is presented in 1.33:1 full frame and it gives a good insight into the filmmaking process, showing the cast and crew working on numerous different scenes. There are a number of interior scenes as well as one of the outdoor action sequences.

Interviews
Selecting this option loads a submenu where you can choose from five different interviews; actors Heather Graham, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone and Ulrich Thomsen as well as director Chen Kaige. Unfortunately there is no ‘Play All’ feature. All interviews are presented in 1.33:1 full frame. Total running time is around 11 minutes.

SUMMARY

Killing Me Softly stars Heather Graham as Alice, a young successful web designer who leads a comfortable life with her boyfriend Jake. However, one day she locks eyes with a handsome and mysterious man called Adam (played by Joesph Fiennes) and her life changes forever. This DVD has a reasonably good visual and audio transfer, not to mention some quite good extra features; a featurette, behind the scenes footage and interviews.