Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Please Stand By
May 1, 2018
Please Stand By - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray
When Please Stand By opened in limited release, it missed the Mendoza Line by a large margin. However, it was also a Video on Demand, so its box office numbers were essentially immaterial. Now that it is out on DVD or Blu-ray is it worth picking up? Or is it strictly a rental?
Wendy is a young lady with autism who lives in a home run by Scottie. She’s independent enough to have a job, but clearly not independent enough to be on her own. She can deal with a lot of things, and is even charming enough that her co-worker, Nemo, has a crush on her. However, she does have outbursts if she’s frustrated or nervous and she’s been extra nervous, because her sister, Audrey, is coming to visit her and she wants to show how well she is doing. The thing that keeps her calm the most is watching Star Trek. In fact, she’s been writing a script for the show for some time. Early in the movie, Wendy learns of a contest Paramount is running. If she can get her printed script to them within a week, she could win $100,000 and get her script made.
Wendy’s meeting with Audrey doesn’t go well. She was exptecting to be able to mail her script and then go home with Audrey. When it becomes clear that’s not going to happen, she freaks, because her condition makes it really hard for her to handle surprises like this. By the time she fully calms down, it is too late to get to the post office. The script has to get to Paramount by Tuesday, there’s no pick up on Sunday, and Monday is a holiday. This leaves Wendy with only one choice, hand deliver it to Paramount. Thus, Sunday morning at the crack of dawn, she begins her trip to Los Angeles to complete her mission.
Please Stand By is one of those films that’s close to being really good, but it is held back by a couple of elements. Firstly, it is a little too slight. While watching the movie, I thought the film felt like an episode of a TV drama that was stretched out to a feature-length film. After watching the movie and doing a bit of research, I discovered why. The film is an adaptation of an one-act play. It feels stretched out, because it was. Additionally, the film wraps up a little too clearly in the end. That said, I can’t really blame the movie for wanting to end on an uplifting note.
On the positive side, I really liked a lot of the performances in the movie. Dakota Fanning is the anchor to the film and without a strong central performance, the movie would have been unbearable. She’s able to make Wendy sympathetic, but with inner strength. Her portrayal of autism comes across as mostly authentic and never crosses the line into a caricature. I also really like Patton Oswalt as a Klingon speaking police officer. His scenes with Dakota Fanning are arguably the highlight of the movie.
The only extras on the DVD / Blu-ray are four minutes of deleted scenes and a six-minute making of featurette. Granted, it was a VOD premiere, so this is not unexpected.
I’m glad I was able to watch Please Stand By, but I don’t think it has the replay value to be worth purchasing. The low amount of extras on the DVD or Blu-ray further enforce that opinion. That said, it’s worth renting on Video on Demand.
Video on Demand
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Please Stand By, Toni Collette, Alice Eve, Dakota Fanning, Patton Oswalt, Tony Revolori