Infinitely Polar Bear Blu-ray review

Jan 05, 2016- Permalink

We covered Infinitely Polar Bear when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014 and now it’s nice to see the movie, starring the always solid Mark Ruffalo, available from Sony Home Entertainment as a Blu-ray release. Written and directed by Maya Fores, Infinitely Polar Bear follows a family as they cope and struggle with their father’s mental illness. The film also stars Zoe Saldana, director Forbe’s daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky, and Ashley Aufderheide.

The 1080p transfer is in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Shot digitally, the resulting transfer looks great, with fine details, clothing textures and a pleasing palette of colours. Black levels can sometimes be a tiny bit bright and there is some mild noise but it doesn’t detract from the overall presentation. All in all, this is a very pleasing video presentation.

On the video end, the disc has an English and French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Russian. On the subtitle side, viewers get English, English SDH, French, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovenian. This isn’t an action film that immerses you in a soundscape, but the surround speakers are used to give us some nice atmosphere. The dialogue’s the thing in this script and it’s crisp and clear here.

On the extras side, there’s a UV digital copy, audio commentary from Ruffalo, Forbes and her producer husband Wally Wolodarsky, a Q&A from the LA Film Festival hosted by Executive Producer J.J. Abrams, deleted scenes and some trailers.

With top notch acting, this directorial debut is highly recommended.