(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG and thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
The Film
I recall when writer/director James Toback’s Two Girls and a Guy was first released in 1997 and the buzz surrounding it about how provocative it was. Looking at it now, I can hardly see what content garnered the NC-17 version’s rating (both R and NC-17 versions are availabe on this Blu-ray release), and I also find it a little far-fetched, but it is certainly intelligent.
Struggling actor Blake (Robert Downey Jr.) has been two-timing his two girlfriends and they each show up at his luxurious SoHo loft to surprise him on his arrival back home from a trip to California. When the refined, intelligent Carla (Heather Graham) and the punky, streetwise Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner) met each other outside Blake’s place and find out they are both dating the same guy, they decide to break in and really give him the surprise of his life.
Then the drama unfolds, all over the course of one long afternoon in Blake’s loft, as the two women confront Blake who at first loses his ability to form coherent sentences and reverts to acting out a fake suicide. From then on the film twists and turns from heat, lukewarm emotions, anger, lust, even a hot sex between Blake and Carla.
Kudos to Toback for not lapsing into the typical male bashing, however, as the prolonged afternoon reveals that all parties involved have been keeping some dirty secrets of their own. The entire film plays with the idea of fidelity, monogamy, and the idea of what it means to truly love. Toback even manages to slip in an allusion to François Truffaut’s 1962 French New Wave film on ménage à trois, Jules et Jim, through one of the poster’s on Blake’s wall.
Still it is the acting that saves Two Girls and a Guy from becoming nothing more than a dull, chatty chamber drama. Downey absolutely loses himself in the character. He is a natural at the caddish charm required to play Blake, and when he begins to break down, it is difficult to tell where the acting starts and the truth begins knowing that Downey had gone through his share of challenges already at that time. Heather Graham is also quite angelic as Carla. She is at once graceful, charming and vulnerable, yet sexy and dangerous.
Video Quality
The 1.85:1 AVC/MPEG-4 transfer of Two Girls and a Guy looks clean and there is very little evidence of source damage present. Overall brightness is rather dim, and flesh tones show a little red push. Black levels are deep and there’s a good amount of shadow detail present in darker areas. Image quality varies from soft to very crisp with sharp film grain.
Audio Quality
Two Girls and a Guy is very much a dialogue-driven film, so there aren’t many opportunities for the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack to shine. It does come alive during some of the sequences where there’s some loud music playing in Blake’s apartment with nice ambience in the surround channels and good bass, but other than that it is quite a dry mix. Dialogue is always intelligible and mostly clean, but there were a couple of moments where there was some noticeable clipping on loud passages of dialogue.
Supplemental Materials
Supplements are sparse on this release. Apart from an interview segment with the director and audio commentary, again with Toback and also Downey, Jr. and Natasha Gregson Wagner, which is only available for the R-rated version of the film, there is only a trailer. Unless you count the inclusion of the NC-17 version of the film as a supplement (I don’t), then that doesn’t really amount to much anything compelling.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
Two Girls and a Guy is hardly provocative by today’s standards and the NC-17 rating for the alternate version on this Blu-ray seems rather amusing today given what one can go down to the local art house cinema and see on screen, but the film is well acted throughout. The acting is the key for this film that comes dangerously close to banality at times, but is reeled back in by riveting performances from Downey and Graham in particular.
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OverallStruggling actor Blake (Robert Downey Jr.) has been two-timing his two girlfriends and they each show up at his luxurious SoHo loft to surprise him on his arrival back home from a trip to California. When the refined, intelligent Carla (Heather Graham) and the punky, streetwise Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner) met each other outside Blake’s place and find out they are both dating the same guy, they decide to break in and really give him the surprise of his life.
The 1.85:1 AVC/MPEG-4 transfer of Two Girls and a Guy looks clean and there is very little evidence of source damage present. Overall brightness is rather dim, and flesh tones show a little red push. Black levels are deep and there’s a good amount of shadow detail present in darker areas. Image quality varies from soft to very crisp with sharp film grain.
Two Girls and a Guy is very much a dialogue-driven film, so there aren’t many opportunities for the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack to shine. It does come alive during some of the sequences where there’s some loud music playing in Blake’s apartment with nice ambience in the surround channels and good bass, but other than that it is quite a dry mix. Dialogue is always intelligible and mostly clean, but there were a couple of moments where there was some noticeable clipping on loud passages of dialogue.
Supplements are sparse on this release. Apart from an interview segment with the director and audio commentary, again with Toback and also Downey, Jr. and Natasha Gregson Wagner, which is only available for the R-rated version of the film, there is only a trailer. Unless you count the inclusion of the NC-17 version of the film as a supplement (I don’t), then that doesn’t really amount to much anything compelling.
Two Girls and a Guy is hardly provocative by today’s standards and the NC-17 rating for the alternate version on this Blu-ray seems rather amusing today given what one can go down to the local art house cinema and see on screen, but the film is well acted throughout. The acting is the key for this film that comes dangerously close to banality at times, but is reeled back in by riveting performances from Downey and Graham in particular.
