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The Grifters



A dark-hearted neonoir comes to a boil under the bright Los Angeles sun, in British director Stephen Frears's rousing adaptation of the novel by dime-store bard Jim Thompson, a film that raises pulp to the realm of existential tragedy. A possessive mother (Anjelica Huston), her cynical son (John Cusack), and his scheming, seductive girlfriend (Annette Bening) are career swindlers circling one another in an elaborate emotional confidence game that grows increasingly perverse as love and trust turn to betrayal and Oedipal undercurrents rise to the surface. In Frears's first Hollywood film, the ever-assured director and his trifecta of magnetic actors conjure a moody, unstuck-in-time vision of toxic Americana.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring director Stephen Frears, actors John Cusack and Anjelica Huston, and screenwriter Donald E. Westlake
• New interview with actor Annette Bening
• Short making-of documentary featuring Cusack, Frears, Huston, Westlake, and production designer Dennis Gassner
• Seduction, Betrayal, Murder: The Making of "The Grifters," featuring interviews with Frears, Stapleton, editor Mick Audsley, executive producer Barbara De Fina, and coproducer Peggy Rajski
• The Jim Thompson Story, featuring Westlake and Robert Polito, biographer of The Grifters novelist Jim Thompson
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien

1 new special feature lol. and Criteron isn't any good at conducting interviews anyway last I checked. What, is Lesley Brill too old and infirm to do a commentary? As Myra might say, give me a break!

And yet I am genuinely curious what Annette Bening, a very smart and kind lady, has to say about this film, not least because she has a reputation as an "interpreter"=i.e., an "on-the-page" actress, and yet how could her brilliant portrayal of Myra just be the result of her doing exactly what she was told by Frears or the script or something, without Bening's own imagination slipping a little something into this very detailed performance? (I haven't read the book.)

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 4:29 pm and Criteron isn't any good at conducting interviews anyway last I checked.

I could not disagree with this more, Criterion does very good interviews, that always, unlike some other labels, are well shot and edited with proper audio.

Well, my experience with Criterion's interviews is largely negative, but also pretty narrow.

it depends with their interviews, a lot of times those "A Conversation between ____ and ____" are a bunch of fluff. but they will get good interviews for sure

anyway, is this a Paramount title these days?

Interviews always depend on the subject, but on a pure technical level, Criterion's in-house interviews are almost always well crafted.

Yes, this is a Miramax title with Paramount.

definitely a good development to see them licensing those pretty freely at this point

I agree, the lighting/audio/etc are always top notch, unfortunately can't always say the same for other labels. this excludes the brief 2020 period with Zoom interviews and all that

The clip from the film on the Criterion website does not look good, massively orange-and-teal-ified, everything has a curdled blue pall, as opposed to the much more natural colors of the film that I am familiar with. No sale.

I thought Criterion had moved past giving every film they touch a Roger Deakins-style acid-wash makeover...

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:11 pm I thought Criterion had moved past giving every film they touch a Roger Deakins-style acid-wash makeover...

Randy while I understand your concerns wouldn’t it be the director’s fault since I imagine he was the one who approved this release and thus how it looks?

In this case, the DP, Oliver Stapleton oversaw/approved the transfer

TechnicolorAcid wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:15 pm Randy while I understand your concerns wouldn’t it be the director’s fault since I imagine he was the one who approved this release and thus how it looks?

Yeah...I guess I don't know who is to blame. It's kind of bizarre how often this happens all over the place, not just at Criterion I'm assuming?, considering Criterion and perhaps others are very reputable labels, I guess, so many of these releases ARE approved by key personnel who are, you know, artful artists who presumably care about the presentation of their work, and I forget the third thing. I don't get it.

They made The Grifters look like No Country for Old Men haha

The original theatrical 35mm prints were bleach bypassed not unlike Se7en so this is probably close to that

DRW.mov wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:43 pm The original theatrical 35mm prints were bleach bypassed not unlike Se7en so this is probably close to that

I was actually going to ask if any could remember if this was bleach bypassed, because that is what the screenshots looks like.

DRW.mov wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:43 pm The original theatrical 35mm prints were bleach bypassed not unlike Se7en so this is probably close to that

What do you mean? Like, this was done back in 1990 for the film's original release? Or that Criterion did it just now? Sorry, I'm confused

The Grifters was originally bleach-bypassed back in post-production. This was a suitable choice to move the look into that nether-world between saturated color and black & white to capture the black & white-ish noir storyline. Just as Saving Private Ryan was bleach-bypassed to capture the look toward documentary black & white WWII footage.

I figured we’d get more Frears, but I kept hoping it would be Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

Alright The Grifters is a good film, so why the need for such a terrible terrible terrible cover. It looks like a fan-made Curb Your Enthusiasm episode poster if I’m being honest

Pretty much agreed! Even the title font is pretty lame, esp. when there's better examples in most of the film's posters.

I approve of the cover art if it's Criterion's first LED box, cycling a .gif of three pairs of thug life sunglasses dropping.

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 4:37 pm (I haven't read the book.)

It's been forever since I have, was shocked when I did. It was wise that Frears and Westlake dropped the fourth main character, the movie could handle that kind of darkness. And it leaves the book as its own great thing.

Yeah I gather the book is even darker than the movie, like in the ending

Spoiler

Roy's death isn't an accident, Lilly just murders him in cold blood and steals his money.

brundlefly wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:27 am It was wise that Frears and Westlake dropped the fourth main character

I didn't know about this--would you mind terribly giving a brief description? Pretty please!

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 3:25 pm

brundlefly wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:27 am It was wise that Frears and Westlake dropped the fourth main character

I didn't know about this--would you mind terribly giving a brief description? Pretty please!

Spoiler

Again, it's been a while. But: A good early chunk of the book takes place in the hospital while Roy is recovering. His attendant is an attractive young nurse encouraged by Mom as an alternative to the girlfriend, and indeed Roy is taken with her as an innocent alternative to both. But then it's learned she's a concentration camp survivor who had been subjected to sexual experiments during the war, and Roy bolts. Has everything been corrupted, is Roy damned from the straight life by confusing purity with innocence, etc. I don't think the nurse comes into play later, more of a long episode, but it sticks. And I also recall the book as having way more Roy/Mom than Roy/Girlfriend.

A wise excision as Frears' lighter and fluffier tone would not survive that. It would also bog down the first act and necessarily make the film a period piece. There's a nurse in the movie, but her name has been changed.

Oops nevermind, I actually knew about that. Tee-hee...

Isn't Pat Hingle great in this? If there's one thing this movie could use, it's more Bobo. Bobo > Tony Soprano and his awful family and awful crew. Any day of the friggin' week.