Grifters (Criterion) 01/25 Blu-ray (Rental)

A dark-hearted neonoir comes to a boil under the bright Los Angeles sun, in British director Stephen Frears’s rousing adaptation of the novel by dime-store bard Jim Thompson, a film that raises pulp to the realm of existential tragedy. A possessive mother (Anjelica Huston), her cynical son (John Cusack), and his scheming, seductive girlfriend (Annette Bening) are career swindlers circling one another in an elaborate emotional confidence game that grows increasingly perverse as love and trust turn to betrayal and Oedipal undercurrents rise to the surface. In Frears’s first film made in Hollywood, the ever-assured director and his trifecta of magnetic actors conjure a moody, unstuck-in-time vision of toxic Americana. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack Audio commentary featuring director Stephen Frears, actors John Cusack and Anjelica Huston, and screenwriter Donald E. Westlake New interview with actor Annette Bening Short making-of documentary featuring Cusack, Frears, Huston, Westlake, and production designer Dennis Gassner Seduction, Betrayal, Murder: The Making of “The Grifters,” featuring interviews with Frears, Stapleton, editor Mick Audsley, executive producer Barbara De Fina, and coproducer Peggy Rajski The Jim Thompson Story, featuring Westlake and Robert Polito, biographer of The Grifters novelist Jim Thompson Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien