"Actor: Leib Lensky"

• Something Wild | DVD | (06/01/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  That Jonathan Demme's Something Wild is compelling from first to last is down to the chemistry between Melanie Griffith (Lulu) and Jeff Daniels (Charlie). She's bad, trashy and into handcuffed sex with strangers in motel rooms: she even manages to look sexy in a black bobbed wig. He's Mr Ordinary, with suit and steady job and--apparently--a wife and kids. Lulu has him mesmerised from the very start, as she offers him a lift back to the office but instead drives to Pennsylvania for her high-school reunion, stealing from garages along the way. Passing Charlie off as her husband, they run into problems when she meets her real one--the greasy, violent Ray, recently out of jail (Liotta, superb here)--and Charlie bumps into a guy from his office. Ray is not about to give up Lulu and pursues the couple relentlessly back to New York, the chase culminating, inevitably, in violence. It's a most unlikely love story, but as Charlie discovers he's less of a grey man than we all first thought, and a softer side of Lulu is revealed, it seems possible that we could be looking at a happy ending. This is a film that seems as fresh today as when it first appeared and remains one of Demme's finest achievements. On the DVD: Something Wild is a pretty basic DVD package. There are no extras beyond the bog-standard trailer and scene-selection options. The picture quality itself is fine, though it's not as pristine as you'd find with more recent films. The spoken languages and subtitles are restricted to English and Spanish. --Harriet Smith