The Undoing: An HBO Limited Series [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland

Release Date: March 23, 2021

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 7.5/10

 

Synopsis:

THE UNDOING: AN HBO LIMITED SERIES follows Grace (Kidman) and Jonathan Fraser (Grant), who are living the only lives they ever wanted for themselves. Overnight, a chasm opens in their lives: a violent death and a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and her family.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

The HBO limited event series ‘The Undoing’ follows successful couple Grace (Kidman) and Jonathan Fraser (Grant) who are living the life they always dreamed of in New York City with their son and a happy overall existence. But the arrival of a curious young woman who is soon found brutally murdered sets off a chain of events and troubling situations that could destroy everything they had, especially when Jonathan is quickly concentrated on by the law as the main suspect. Determined to find the truth about the event and her husband’s uncertain past, Grace soon finds herself in dangerous waters as her questions and actions cause the police to focus more attention on her. But one way or another, the truth must be uncovered.

‘The Undoing’ is an engaging, often intense and beautifully acted mystery that follows the complete upheaval of one seemingly perfect family’s lives following a brutal crime that is sure to change them forever once the investigation picks up heat and the unpleasant revelations begin to fly. The series does falter occasionally and ignores some storylines and breached elements that seem baffling to disregard later on but never fails to deliver a powerful and downright addicting journey as it all plays out. The stellar cast alone (especially Grant, Sutherland and Kidman) does the series plenty of favors in their own right, elevating many of the more predictable or questionable moments and allowing them to play out with a sense of realism instead of feeling comedic, although a few moments and revelations in the latter episodes are still a little disappointing in their lack of originality. Nonetheless, many of the issues can either be forgiven or somewhat ignored thanks to the many other positives the series has in its favor in addition to the talented cast at its disposal. As a whole, it’s actually a quite enthralling and enjoyable series with more than enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the screen and trying to piece it all together. It’s definitely worth giving a chance if you’re at all intrigued or simply enjoy any/all of the key cast.

Overall, ‘The Undoing’ is a thoroughly entertaining, occasionally unpleasant and always intriguing mystery series event that benefits a great deal from the phenomenal cast, especially leads Grant, Kidman and Sutherland who all deliver fantastic performances throughout. This 6-part HBO limited series is certainly worth checking out on HBO, or even HBO Max if you haven’t yet had the chance to give it a whirl, but those who haven’t yet seen it may want to at least rent it if HBO isn’t an option before purchasing a copy of the Blu-ray release because it may not be a series everyone will want to frequently revisit. For fans of the series who would like to physically own it though, the 2-disc Blu-ray release from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment shouldn’t disappoint. It serves up solid high definition video and audio presentations on all six episodes, along with some brief, yet entertaining extras.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Undoing’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the show’s original 2.00:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the episodes. The video presentations look great as a whole and provide nice, smooth and beautifully detailed presentations on all six episodes, spread between two discs for optimal quality. They hold up effortlessly even during the various darkly lit, heavily populated and fast moving sequences throughout, never allowing anything that might be occurring onscreen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, these are terrific high definition video presentations that should easily please fans of the series who would like to physically own it in high definition.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 6 episodes of the limited series. These multichannel soundtracks do a wonderful job of complimenting the onscreen tension and uncertainty. They regularly embrace all five available channels in order to send rain pattering, along with other nature content, vehicle activity and crowd chatter, plus much more making its way throughout the various speakers at every logical opportunity and never resulting in any dialogue or other audio elements that may be occurring simultaneously becoming distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, these are highly capable 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that more than deliver in every way required of them and they shouldn’t disappoint in the slightest.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Undoing’ includes a collection of brief Featurettes spread across both discs. They include ‘Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant Introduce The Undoing’ (running approximately 4 minutes in length) and ‘Creating The Undoing’ (running approximately 3 minutes), along with a handful of various (and primarily character focused) Featurettes included under ‘The Undoing Revelations’ (approximately 1-3 minutes each) which include ‘The Fraser Family’, ‘Elena Alves, ‘Jonathan Fraser’, ‘Sylvia Steinetz’, ‘Detective Joe Mendoza’, ‘Grace Reinhart Fraser’, ‘Haley Fitzgerald’, ‘Fernando Alves’, ‘Franklin Reinhart’, ‘Henry Fraser’, and ‘The Bridge Scene’.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 7.5/10

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‘The Undoing: An HBO Limited Series’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from HBO & Warner Bros Home Entertainment

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