The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet 3D Blu-ray Review
MOVIE REVIEW
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is a 2013 film and adaptation of a novel with the same name. It follows a young and prodigious boy from Montana growing up on a farm with his sister, mother, and father. Despite his midwestern upbringing, T.S. is actually a boy genius. When he submits a blueprint for perpetual motion to Washington, D.C., he is invited to the Smithsonian to join a celebration in his favor. However, the journey getting there all by himself will prove to be a little difficult. And all the while, T.S. tries to cope with the accidental death of his brother.
I'm willing to bet none of you have ever heard of this film before, and I wouldn't blame you. T.S. Spivet is a very small, relatively obscure film that despite having English actors, was a Franco-Canadian production. Its U.S. rights were sold to Weinstein, who requested multiple cuts to be made to the film the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet refused to make. As a result, the film was quietly released for a couple of weeks in U.S. cinemas and didn't even break $100,000 at the box office. Worldwide, the movie made a less than $10 million total against a budget of $26 million. I get the film is not exactly structured for massive appeal. But it honesty deserved much better.
T.S. Spivet is an overall very humble movie with a story that stays pretty relatively small scale. There's nothing groundbreaking or profound. It just follows a young boy trying to make his way to Washington D.C. while trying to handle multiple struggles. In all honesty, I'm totally fine with it. It's not so often in this day and age we get films that don't need spectacle or genius ideas to engage audiences, just likable characters, some charm, and a story that's easy to invest. And T.S. Spivet has all three, and to a degree that I think it deserves more praise than I see for it. There is a very clear sense of visual style at work here from the bright, vibrant color palette to the wonderfully composed 3D cinematography. But once you look past that, there's a surprising emotional dynamic between T.S. and his family that serves as the heart of the story. Just 15 minutes in and I already felt I knew the Spivet family better than the characters in most big-budget blockbusters (which isn't saying a lot in 2024, but still).
Everyone is unique and well-defined, but in a way that feels simultaneously quirky and effortless, a lot like a Wes Anderson movie. The movie makes no secret of T.S.'s brilliant brain and the way it shines through in his overly complicated dialogue. But it balances it out well by showing him in states of emotional confusion. His parents both spend time doing their own things in the corner. But we all know they still love the boy. This is a movie that explores guilt and grief, but it refreshingly restrains from going into overly melodramatic territory. There are emotional moments to be had, but they come not so much because the movie demands it, but because they stem naturally from the characters and how they interact in their situations, thus making them hit harder. Now, sometimes that sense of quirkiness that runs through the story can go into overdrive, slowing down the film, and I can imagine it won't resonate with all audiences. But for me, that only goes further to show T.S. Spivet is a rare kind of movie: the kind that does whatever it wants and trusts itself to find its audience. That gives the film a one-of-a-kind sense of identity that makes it more personally enjoyable for people like me who did get into it.
I wouldn't call T.S. Spivet perfect by any means. It can at times be a bit to quirky for its own good, it does drag on after some time, and while the film does do a good job of fleshing out the Spivet family, some of the side characters do feel a bit off. However, while not my personal favorite movie, I still can't help but have a soft spot for it. It's kinda hard not to for a relatively small film that's just off doing its own thing over in the corner. I still highly enjoyed the set designs, the characters, the dialogue, and the visual inventiveness, all which are things we hardly see in such a unique fashion outside of Wes Anderson productions. There are some genuinely depressing themes at the core of the story that I doubt everyone will be ready for, but I can't say it didn't tug at my heartstrings. All in all, it's ultimately a "take-it-or-leave-it" type film. Like I said, it won't resonate with everyone. But if you've seen the trailer and you know what you're in for, I strongly recommend you give it a watch. Those who enjoy littler-known films with engaging characters and a stylized vision should find their fill with The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet.
OVERALL FILM RATING: 3.5/5
3D REVIEW
A movie about superheroes with big, bombastic action? Sounds perfect for 3D, doesn't it? What about a film where a young boy travels across the U.S. to receive an award that's full of character drama? Not so much. Yet, just like Gravity and Hugo, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet not only was released in 3D, but was shot from ground up with that format in mind with seemingly nearly as much planning put into the usage of 3D as in the story itself. It's as if Jean-Pierre Juenet saw either of the two aforementioned films and swore it himself to one-up them. As a result, every scene of this film is not only shot in native 3D, but is actively trying to find angles and motions that make the 3D as mesmerizing and immersive as possible. To describe every way this movie utilizes the 3D would probably take longer than it would to just watch the film itself. In fact, it'd almost seem all for naught to try and put the expert 3D composition into words. I know lately, I've been inconsistent with whether or not I use links to images from the film to help make my points about how the 3D is used. But this is a film that definitely deserves it.
In the case of most common 3D movies, I typically use a formula where my review is split into 3 consecutive categories, depth in-screen, clever composition of 3D, and 3D pop outs. However, this is not a common 3D film and, I believe, is instead deserving of two categories, places where the 3D works intentionally with the film, and places where the 3D works seemingly unintentionally. It's a strange way to go about this movie. But after seeing so many films like Finding Nemo and Jurassic Park that subtly work well in 3D despite not being filmed for it, and with how subtle the 3D is in The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet most of the time, I feel I ought to take this route not just to show why this film looks great in 3D, but also that the people behind were actively using it.
In terms of the former category, I don't think I can go to far without describing the ample amount of pop outs on display. Some of the most obvious ones I can think of aren't tangible things in the film's world, but rather imaginary things pertaining to T.S.'s mind such as visualizations of machine models, great scientists, bubbles thinking back into his past, and even some occasional smoke. Some of these pop outs do suffer from a bit of a "Spy Kids 3-D" effect where they pop out so much the objects in question end up looking smaller than they actually are. Still, I do appreciate the 3D being used to its full extent here, especially as it works to draw us into the imagination of T.S. Spivet (and sometimes, it even breaks the aspect ratio). Other fantastical elements we see pop out at us that don't exist within the context of the story include a pop-up book (very Spy Kids 3-D fashion) and at the film's end, funny enough, a viewfinder (I don't want to steal images used by the 3D Blu-ray Bunker, but there's just not much I can go off of online). It's in these types of shots where the 3D is pushed the most. But even in the real world, the movie still gives us a good amount of 3D pop outs that, while gimmicky to a degree, are none the less quite fun. There's a sword, a gun (amusing as it becomes important to the story), a camera, a train, a snake, T.S.'s father's animals he has hanging on the walls of his study, some glitter, a pendulum, a lasso, even an angry teacher leaning in on us in a Hugo-type fashion. During his package montage, T.S. Spivet also makes it his duty to hold every item he's bringing out of the screen whenever possible. When T.S. is talking about his parents, his father burns the end of a stick which "sticks" out at us with smoke and sparks coming off the end of it while his mother blows daffodils. At one point, T.S. pull out a diagram showing everyone's eye contact at the dinner table and the dotted lines going from one person to the other just leap off the screen. And that's just what I could get off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more pop outs that I'm forgetting. As far as a 3D is concerned, that's a good thing.
Even in-screen, the camera angles are being used to capture shots at moments that, while not the deepest I've seen, will easily stun in 3D. This is where the 3D becomes a lot more subtle and the line between intentional 3D usage and unintentional 3D success becomes blurry. But I'll start out what I think falls into the former. On a large scale, the farm the Spivet family lives on is covered in fields that stretch far out into the background. In fact, the movie opens on one of these shots. And the native 3D which allows for each blade of grass to stand naturally in its own space truly makes it a shot to let sink in. Railroad tracks and bars of iron lend their way to some good 3D composition. A few cityscapes have buildings going far off into the background, there's a dam which is moderately tall that the 3D emphasizes in an necessary moment, and there's a train checkpoint with extraordinarily tall buildings.
Where the 3D stands out the most, though, is when it's focused on smaller things. 3D shape is apparent on everything even as small as a figurine or rows of insects pinned to a board. There's some interesting shots with fences, at least one amusing shot involving mirrors, a few great binocular shots, and some brief underwater shots showing fish and even the title of the movie in very shallow, but also equally very noticeable, depth. Remember back to when I said there's a scene where T.S. is describing his parents? In that very same scene, there's also a neat split screen shot reminding me almost of the 3D split screen shots in Into the Spider Verse, and we get the added bonus of having the mother wave her net around at us. There's a few shots where the camera is placed on the floor, allowing it to protrude the screen in a way that reminds me of those ocean surface shots in Jaws (1975) 3D. One of which in particular has T.S. pulling out a phone cord across the floor towards the camera and then back again. It's a very subtle but effective use of 3D. There's also some good use of top-down shots. One scene in which I think the presence of 3D added to the amusement of the scene was during a scene in which T.S. is hiding in an RV from a police officer and he poses to blend in with a couple of cardboard cutouts. In 2D, it's a funny enough moment. But in 3D where you can clearly tell which object have depth and which ones don't, it adds another "layer" to the comedy. Even from a slightly more serious standpoint, there's a shot involving raindrops pouring down a car window while T.S. Spivet narrating gives off a thought-provoking quote about the nature of raindrops and the nature of humans where the 3D once again adds to impact of the scene.
Now let's get onto where I think the 3D works even though either the director didn't actively intend it to or he did, but in a way so subtle it seems so effortless. The environments in this film in general are the biggest example. The farm has those aforementioned grassy plans that are lush to look into. But it also has mountains in the background, plains that stretch for miles, even herds of goats and fences pop in the native 3D. Even outside of farms, the insides of trucks and vehicles feel more immersive, an indoor college classroom with a stadium-like seating arrangement looks nice and is captured well, and even a fancy dining hall with individual seats and people sticks out more in 3D. There aren't a whole lot of crowd shots in T.S. Spivet. But in the few that are there, the third dimension gives us a mesmerizing level of detail that lets us know what kind of environment we're in, with the dining hall scene being one of them, of course (that one scene honestly reminds me a bit of The Great Gatsby if I'm being honest). Even in scenes that are slightly more intimate, the 3D depth, or the lack thereof, can add to the scene. It can range from situations more mundane such as in the kitchen/dining room of a humble home where you can feel the distance between characters, to much more serious moments like with Layton's wagon stored in a small shed or when two characters are crouched up mourning in the corner of a room. There's an interesting moment full of intimacy where T.S.'s family are all surrounding the phone talking at once to the young boy expressing a mix of concern and joy that he's alive. And then that intimacy is contrasted immediately in the next shot when we see T.S. himself far away from the phone booth. It's little moments like that where 3D makes the drama of the scene all that much more apparent.
Aside from the moments where they're obviously trying to push the 3D, there's plenty of screen protrusion that's on the more subtle side of things to make the film feel more up close and personal. Mainly, this includes character's heads. But it can also include various objects such as figurines, animals, grass, chandeliers, trains, and more. Like I said, the depth in-screen isn't the deepest I've seen. But in a similar way to some of the early mo-cap films by Robert Zemeckis, more effort is put on placing the emphasis on what's in front of the screen rather than pushing everything behind it. This isn't like Beowulf where practically nothing goes in behind the screen. It's just not as far back as you'd expect for a film with lush landscapes. Still, nothing ever looks wrong thanks to the native 3D presentation. And whatever is in the foreground gets ample time to shine in 3D glory.
The first time I watching The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, it was around a couple years ago. And while I knew it was certainly in 3D, the movie never seemed to beg for it, aside from some obvious in-your-face moments. However, that all changed when I watched the 3D version for the first time. Not only was it a 3D tour de force from beginning to end, but it works in all sorts of creative ways you wouldn't expect. Sometimes, it can pull you into a dramatic moment and other times it's cheesy screen protruding fun. You can certainly enjoy the film in 2D. This isn't like Avatar or Gravity where the 2D version looks a bit weird. But if you go with the 3D version, it's for sure like watching a whole different movie. All of a sudden, the stylized visual flair sticks out more to the point where shots feel like they ought to be paused and savored in all their 3D glory. And at times, the 3D even moves the story in clever, intimate ways. I know it seems like I give an "excellent" rating to more 3D films than I should. But the Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet truly does stand up there as one of the best 3D films I've seen in a very long time. The 3D really does have that much passion poured into it. Unfortunately, its obscurity not just as a movie, but also as a 3D movie, makes it one of the most underrated 3D presentations on the market, toe to toe with Kung Fu Panda 3D in terms of obscurity. Apparently, it did have a limited IMAX 3D run in France (I don't know if I'd call this an IMAX movie, but I'm not complaining if it gets recognition from such a famous corporation like IMAX). But aside from that, there's little about the film that suggests its in 3D. From what I know, only France and Hong Kong carry 3D Blu-rays of this film. Usually, that would make them hard to obtain. But it seems as of now, the Hong Kong 3D Blu-ray (which plays in Region A players) is relatively easy to find on Amazon. If you have the chance and don't already own it, I suggest you go out and buy it. It truly is an unforgettable 3D experience that needs to be seen to believed. That's all I have to say. Just see it for yourself.
3D RATING: EXCELLENT
OTHER SOURCES THAT REVIEW THIS MOVIE'S 3D
3D Blu-ray Bunker's Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGyRdSD_Zko
Go Find Fun's Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olavYtpxliA
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is a quirky, colorful family film with style, humor, and heart. It's quite difficult these days to find movies like this that have such vision yet remain quite humble. I said it before, but it has such a Wes Anderson quality to it, in that its offbeat and amusing, but still quite charming with unique, likable characters that keep you invested all the way through. I get that won't be everyone's cup of tea. But for me, I found it quite enjoyable. I don't know if I'd put this on quite the same level as Fantastic Mr. Fox or Grand Budapest Hotel. But I just find so much to like about it that in the end, its successes easily outweigh its shortcomings. If it's your cup of tea, I recommend you get the chance to sit down and watch it. And of course, the 3D is the absolute way to go. I've already talked extensively about how much of a picture perfect 3D presentation this is, and only in the way that a natively shot 3D movie shot from the ground up to be in 3D can bring. All I can really say about it I haven't said before is this is the kind of 3D film that will win over everyone, even those dead set against 3D. For that reason alone, it's a must buy if you have a 3D collection.
Now, I will give a slight caution, though, to parents with young children. As I said before, although the movie uses English speaking actors, the actual production itself is shared between Canada and France. And I guess over there, they're a bit more lenient on profanity because the original audio track contains two usages of a certain four-letter word that over here in the U.S., one usage of will garner your film an automatic PG-13 (and in one instance in the film, is preceded by "mother"). If you look up the film online, you'll see it has a PG rating. That's because over in America, they use an alternate audio track that has both of those words dubbed over. That's not the case for the Hong Kong 3D Blu-ray I use, and I doubt it's the case for the French one either. Older audiences won't care, but I thought I'd give out a word of warning towards families with young children before they pop this one in the Blu-ray player. If you rent this off of Amazon in the U.S. or get a American version of the film on physical, you'll be just fine. If you want to see this in 3D, though, maybe be a bit wiser about what types of kids you let watch it with you. Though to be fair, T.S. Spivet probably isn't even really meant for younger kids anyway due to some of the dark, depressing themes and some scattered milder language (apparently, one Amazon reviewer got mad over a scene in which it appeared a young boy was performing bestiality on a dog, stating it came from the minds of perverts. In actuality, though, he was just shaking his dog trying to get him to vomit. It's an innocent scene that's only five-seconds in length. And honestly, seeing how no one else seems to view the scene that way, I think it says more about the reviewer's mind than it does the people who worked on the film).
FIND IT HERE
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