Writer/director Michael Petroni's Till Human Voices Wake Us is a strangely inert piece of cinema. It wants you to weep and moan for the tragic plights of its central characters, but its innate pretension prevents you from establishing any connection with its characters. It's a film that seems like it should work—considering its powerful performances, gorgeous cinematography, and studied tone—but at every turn, its stabs at your heart miss their mark.

Deeply scarred psychologist Sam Franks (Guy Pearce) travels to his small Australian home town to bury his father. Visiting his old haunts starts conjuring memories of his idyllic teen years, and we soon realize that there's a shadow of tragedy hanging over these flashbacks. As a boy, Sam (played by Lindley Joyner) enjoyed a perfect teen relationship with the perfect girl, Silvy (Brooke Harman). As the adult Sam meanders through his present-day existence, we get increasingly worrisome scenes from his past, in which something life-changing will inevitably occur. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman (Helena Bonham Carter) has entered Sam's adult life, and she is hauntingly linked to his past.

Although that capsule summary makes the film sound quite involving, the truth is that the pace of the film, and the high-falutin words pouring from the characters' mouths, doom Till Human Voices Wake Us to torpid mediocrity. The structure of present-day scenes interspersed with flashbacks to melancholy nostalgia slows the film to a snail's pace when it should be piquing our interest. And although I typically enjoy open-ended mysteries, the central riddle of this film is simply lost beneath the film's tendency to induce narcolepsy.

It pains me to deliver a poor review for this film, because the performances are uniformly fine, even among the child actors, and the look of the film is striking. I wanted this film to work, because on the surface level, it's a smashing success. It's when the characters begin to speak that Till Human Voices Wake Us fails.

Paramount presents Till Human Voices Wake Us in a spectacular anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 2.35:1 theatrical presentation. This is one of the finest transfers I've seen in quite a while. Detail is stellar, reaching deeply into backgrounds. The rich color palette is brought forth with stunning clarity and vividness. Flesh tones are natural and solid. I noticed no compression artifacts of any kind. An absolutely first-rate effort.

The disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 track is a low-key affair that nevertheless boasts a depth that is quite pleasing. Dialog, ambient sound, and the score are wonderfully rich, though the story is often told in whispers. The word I would use for this mix is subtle, but it's no less effective than a sound-obsessed blockbuster. This sound presentation is perfectly suited to the subject matter—haunting and quietly lingering.

Nothin'.

Till Human Voices Wake Us is a majestic failure. I wish I could recommend the film on the basis of its fabulous audio/video presentation, but a mediocre film plus an absence of extras means that I can only suggest a rental—at most.