A private detective forced to face the ghosts of his past when his niece asks him to investigate her father’s death.

For in-depth thoughts on The Other Laurens, please see my colleague Cody Allen’s review from its original festival debut here.

Video Quality

The Other Laurens makes its Blu-Ray debut with a rich 1080p video presentation that captures the stylish cinematography well. The mixture of lavish and shabby production design and narratively important shooting locations provide crystal clear textural details that are a joy to explore. The image is crisp with the nuanced color palette saturating the screen. The film offers some deep, complex colors within the landscapes and lighting schemes. The black levels reveal slight signs of banding in a few scenes, but largely they maintain their depth. The flesh tones are natural with a stellar amount of detail present in close-ups. The presentation shows off an impressive amount of depth, especially when it comes to some of the shots of the shoreline. This Blu-Ray is an excellent representation of this movie that should more than please fans.

Audio Quality

Yellow Veil Pictures gives this Blu-Ray a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in the original French with forced English subtitles. The soundscape appears to be faithfully realized throughout the narrative. Dialogue emanates clearly without being overshadowed by any competing sounds. Environmental sounds of the world engage the surround speakers in a particularly immersive manner with waves and certain animal sounds allowing the world to feel alive. When the characters move through the world, numerous distinct ambient details flesh out the setting. The music is effective and well-balanced while maintaining its fidelity. A few sequences deliver some nice texture in the low end response, but it is not a standout in this regard. The audio track does everything it needs to quite well.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Director Claude Schmitz, Director of Photography Florian Berutti, and Composer Thomas Turine provide a decently informative commentary track in French with English subtitles in which they discuss how they achieved the look of the film, the music that was composed, the changing tone of the movie, and more.

Nothing But Summer (Short Film): A 35-minute short film is provided in HD that follows the residents of a chateau during a summer holiday.

Booklet: A multi-page booklet featuring the essay “The Other Laurens Impact (At Least)!” from Professor Dick Tomasovic is provided here. This piece gives a well-rounded analysis of the themes and plot developments of the film along with a history of the filmmaker which strengthens your comprehension overall.

Final Thoughts

The Other Laurens is a captivating mystery for much of its runtime as you go down the rabbit hole of double-crosses and meticulous schemes that unveil secrets that shake up the familial foundation of the characters. What keeps this from being a new classic in the genre is the execution, which seems to unravel as it barrels down a third act of baffling developments and questionable character decisions. This does not completely undo all of the moody world-building that came before, but the movie leaves you more puzzled than excited by the time the credits start rolling. The movie is still worth a look, but we wish it could have stuck the landing a little firmer. Yellow Veil Pictures has released a Blu-Ray featuring a first-rate A/V presentation and a few insightful special features. Recommended

The Other Laurens is currently available to purchase on Standard Edition Blu-Ray or with a Limited Edition Slipcover exclusively through Vinegar Syndrome.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Yellow Veil Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.