Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: A good hooker movie
Likes: The Dutch
Dislikes: Boring movies
Hates: Depressing movies

The Movie
Steve + Sky opens and closes with two stories that are alike, yet different, and in neither case can I understand their point. Then again, there's an hour and a half of story in between that's relatively meaningless as well, so I guess it all fits together. Directed by Felix van Groeningen, with a sense of gritty style, the film is half a meditation on what kind of bad deal life can be, and half a portrait of loneliness. What it is not, is a happy film.

The titular Steve is a small-time loser, who ends up in a nice, clean Belgian jail when he's busted for possession of Ecstasy. When he's released, dressed in a rather iconic gray suit and pink tie, topped by a mop of unkempt hair, he decides to straighten up and get away from drugs. Instead, he'll just steal. The path of failure seems like the only one for him.

Starting over, he meets Sky, a tall blonde with the skanky sexuality of a Belgian Paris Hilton. Sky is a prostitute working for her boyfriend's mother, in order to pay for his court fees and psychiatrist, after he gets hooked on pills and robs a store. It's hard to imagine there were ever two people who were better off not meeting, especially when their first get-together ends in a seizure, robbery and a broken arm.

Sky and Steve get together with Steve's former cell-mate Jean-Claude to start a strip club, that's best described as "ghetto." The dancers aren't exactly attractive, and the star attraction has one arm in a full cast. But despite the obvious chance of failure, they press on, just as they do with the rest of their lives.

Director van Groeninger picks and chooses from a variety of cinematic tricks and techniques to tell the story, putting the plot out of order, speeding up and slowing down the film and trying many different camera angles to shake things up. If there was a story at the center of it all that really had something to say, this could have been a pretty good movie, but in the end, it's all style and very little substance.

The DVD
Packed in a standard keepcase is a one-sided DVD, without an insert. The disc has an animated, anamorphic widescreen main menu, that's decidedly low budget. Options include play, scene select and extras. The chapter select menu has still previews for each scene, while there are no audio options. The default English subtitles can be turned off via the extras menu.

The subtitles on this release are questionable, as many lines, including the songs sung by Sky, are not translated. There's even some odd punctuation thrown in round off the package.

The Quality
Though presented in anamorphic widescreen, the video on this film is sketchy at best. There's a large amount of grain in the transfer, the film as a whole is soft, and colors tend to be washed-out, and when they aren't, they blur. The level of detail is weak overall, making for a less-than-optimal viewing experience. The only plus is the fact that there doesn't seem to be any dirt or damage in the transfer.

The audio, a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, isn't very impressive either, delivering almost the entire mix through the center channel. I listened closely to see if there was any separation, but couldn't hear any. The track is rather strong, but could have been more dynamic.

The Extras
The box lists the theatrical trailer as a special feature, but it's not on the DVD (at least not in any obvious place.) The only special feature under the extras menu is the option to view the film without subtitles, which, in this reviewer's opinion, isn't very special.

The Bottom Line
The concept is good, the style is there, but the outcome is hardly worth the effort of pressing play on your DVD remote. A depressing story of two people with no hope because they refuse to allow themselves hope, Steve + Sky is the kind of movie that inspires people to wear all black and listen to Morrissey, and not for the uplifting messages. It's hipster entertainment, not good filmmaking. The DVD has a disappointing presentation, and absolutely no extras to go with it. If you go for films that revel in the depths of the soul, take a look, but most should look elsewhere.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.