Jonathan - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Jonathan

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
As much as I love Well Go USA as an independent label, most of my slam dunk loves come from their Asian cinematic offerings, especially when you consider that’s what they were founded on. Getting Asian cinema over to the west in larger offerings and with more accurate variations (no more chopped and cropped, dubbed Asian films like New Line and other big name studios were doing back in the day), and introducing us to more films from Hong Kong, China, Korea and even Thailand. Their “western” offerings have usually been rather low budget and oddball films that really tend to be misses WAY more often than they are hits. However, every once in a while a film comes through that is actually much better than expected, which is the case with 2018’s Jonathan, a slow burner drama dealing with two people trying to come to grips with an impossible situation.

Jonathan (Ansel Elgort) has his life’s routine down pat. He gets up 7:00 every day, he goes on a run, works until noon at his architectural job, and then comes records a conversation about the day to someone, and then goes to bed at 7:00 pm. Rinse and repeat. Well, it’s obvious from the get go that this other person is someone he’s living with, and within a few short introductory minutes we find out who it is. It just so happens that Jonathan is sharing a body with another consciousness, a person called John. For 12 hours of the day Jonathan is in charge of the body, but once he goes to sleep John wakes up and takes over control. It’s symbiotic, albeit strange, but works for the two of them. However, things take a change for the worse when John starts becoming enigmatic and Jonathan is forced to hire a private investigator to find out what John is doing with their body while he’s out of comission.

Under all the of the mystery and sci-fi trappings of Jonathan, the tale is much more low key and dramatic in nature. Take aside all of the false red herrings about this being a mystery/thriller, and the story really boils down to an interpersonal relationship between two men who happen to share a remarkably unique situation. Jonathan and John are nothing alike, and their interactions are wildly different at best. They’ve shared the same host body for so very long, and with the strange interactions that are happening with their host body, it’s bound to cause some conflicts. John is seeing a girl named Elena (Suki Waterhouse), which only strains the secrecy pact that they’ve formed, but this is only the beginning of a journey that will cause them to fully confront the reality of their situations.

I actually really liked Jonathan. It wasn’t at all what I expected when I went into the movie. The trailer made it out to be a mysterious thriller, and even the first 1/3rd of the movie tricks you into thinking that there would be much more mystery to the sci-fi film. However, past the halfway point of the film you start to get comfortable and realize that this is much more dramatic in nature. It’s a low key (sometimes TOO low key) interpersonal drama between John and Jonathan, as they struggle to form some sort of relationship midst all of the turmoil and confusion of living in the same body.

Bill Oliver crafts a fairly solid drama throughout the hour and forty minute film, with only a few pitfalls. The original psyche out of the film being a mystery thriller aside, There are some odd narrative choices. The relationship that forms between Jonathan and Elena after John and she break up is a bit superfluous, and their ending “disaster” doesn’t really push the story along very much. I really wish he had spent more time on the tenuous bond that Jonathan and John share rather than use that run time for the romantic aspect. It just doesn’t work that well, and while I know it’s a catalyst for John’s downward spiral, it could have been trimmed out dramatically and not affected the story at all.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Like most indie films, I’m having a hard time tracking down what cameras were used to film Jonathan, but if I were a betting man I would assume that it is using some form of Arri Alexa or Red Epic cameras, as this bears all the hallmarks of a digitally shot film. Slightly glossy, grain free, and clear detail levels. There’s an overall blue/green tinge to the color grading, and the sci-fi “unnamed future” date trappings all have that “vaguely futuristic” polished look to them. Phones, clocks, radios, they are from our time period, but all that have Ipod glossiness to them that we like to associate with futuristic items. Details are generally very good, although the digital product can be a bit soft, especially in low light situations like the dim lighting in John/Jonathan’s apartment. Blacks are good, but never great, and there is some mild banding that shows up (surprise surprise) every now and then. Otherwise this is a very very pleasing looking image.




Audio:

like the movie itself, Johnathan’s 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio track is rather low key. This is a character drama first and foremost, and while there’s nothing really WRONG with the track, it is exceedingly front heavy and relies almost entirely on dialog for the sound. There’s some mild ambient noise that comes through in the surrounds and front mains, but even the mains are never really utilized that much, as the majority of the work is all in the center channel. LFE gets a few pops with the rumbling of a train, or the “whomp” or a sudden consciousness change, but other than that, this is a very very low key laid back audio mix.






Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Previews

Final Score: ​

Jonathan is an interesting flick that really is quite a bit better than I was initially bracing myself for. It’s not as much like the trailer as you would expect (the trailer is kind of a fake out), but it’s a rather enjoyable character drama about two very different people trying to live in the same body. Sometimes the film is a bit TOO low key for it’s own good, and Oliver shoehorns in a romance that really isn’t that necessary, but I have to admit that I really did like the film. The technical specs are solid enough, but the extras are nothing but a small handful of trailers. Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy a good character drama.





Technical Specifications:

Starring: Ansel Elgort, Suki Waterhouse, Patricia Clarkson, Matt Bomer, Douglas Hodge, Souleymane Sy Savane, Shunori Ramanthan
Directed by: Bill Oliver
Written by: Bill Oliver, Gregory Davis, Peter Nickowitz
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 101 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 15th, 2019

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Check it Out

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this one. It does have a very interesting take. Will check it out.

 

[Michael Scott]

like I said in the review, I enjoyed it. a low key drama, but a solid one

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Definitely peaked my curiosity.

 

[Jack1949]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this one. It does have a very interesting take. Will check it out.

Ditto. Don't think I would have considered this movie, but your review has me interested. Thanks.