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Dir. Jonathan Parker
Rating: 7.3 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
One need not be an art connoisseur to be able to laugh at the absurd contemporary art shenanigans of Jonathan Parker's witty farce. The film mocks actual notable twentieth century contemporary artists, but not in a remorseless fashion; rather, the comedic elements highlight the two worlds that are pitted against one another in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The conflict centers on the artistic world versus the mainstream world, or the appreciation of art for its artistic merit versus creating it for commercial gain. Madeleine Gray (Marley Shelton) is an ambitious, yet scrupulous, young gallerist who is in the contemporary art world for her love of what she sees as the sublimity of contemporary art. Unfortunately for Josh Jacobs (Eion Bailey), whose commercial art she must sell against her best interests and who happens to be infatuated with her, she sees the sublimity in his brother Adrian’s (Adam Goldberg) bizarre atonal, cacophonic music. Madeleine’s tense straddling of these two worlds becomes more literal as she vacillates between the two men. The novelty of the film is the way in which it refuses to proclaim one character as more admirable than another. As far as Parker and co-screenwriter Catherine DiNapoli are concerned, all their characters' motivations are valid. Adrian wants his work to matter after he is dead. An outlandish artist, Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones), aims to reinvent himself each day. Josh insists that his “search for beauty is ongoing” and Madeleine is on a quest to find the seminal artist who seeks to write the history of western civilization. Thankfully, the filmmakers never stop the fun their having to reveal a direct opinion, they're far too busy letting everyone go at each other. A comedy for intelligent adults, it nevertheless doesn't feel the perverse need to further educate its audience.
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