Paint

While making a parody of a iconic American painter like Bob Ross sounds like a sealed deal, however, filmmaker Brit McAdams and his muse Owen Wilson never quite reach its full potential with their latest indie comedy, Paint, a disappointing and sporadically amusing new comedy about a Vermont painter named Carle Nargle (Wilson), who has painted on PBS’s number one painting show for three decades. Mindful, McAdams is clearly channeling some humor from Christopher Guest, Adam McKay, and Wes Anderson films with his satire on the art world  The film will for sure leave some smiles towards the end, but the film takes its time for the comedy to work, and a lot of it feels very lethargic and flat. It was almost as if it were an early draft in need of more rewrites, improvisation, and humor. Sadly, the film never generates enough belly laughs or finds an effective comedic spirit. The end result is a very dry and forgettable one.

One of the most dissatisfying aspects of Paint is how it doesn’t reach its comedic potential. With a shortage of catchphrases and only a few standout moments, Owen Wilson never fully warms up to the material until the hour mark, and by that point, you already feel checked out and dejected with the experience. While certainly a great role for Wilson, with the trademark curly hair, tender vernacular, and passion for landscape painting, Wilson gets a lot of the mannerisms that are error-free. Nonetheless, the jokes within the writing seldom sell, too often, the film meanders into dramatic territory with its marital and relationship dramas, and it feels like McAdams has forgotten that he’s actually crafting a comedy. It is clear Wilson has always had a flair for comedy. Dating back to his credit in serving as lead and co-writer for Wes Anderson’s debut with Bottle Rocket, which jumpstarted his career in acting in many other celebrated comedies such as Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Wedding Crashers, and of course, many other Wes Anderson roles in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He has proven he can do parodies, satires, improvisation, and sketch comedies, yet his range feels suppressed here due to McAdam’s docile writing. Imagine if Wilson was given more liberty to be a co-writer or more range to improvise. The result is only intermittently amusing and never finds its quirky potential or even some deadpan hilarity.

Courtesy IFC FIlms 

Focusing more on the demise of Carl, the iconic landscape painter on PBS who was eventually phased out due to low ratings and relevance. While the town of Burlington seems to be Carl’s biggest fan, and many in the town tune in to watch his latest vista painting, PBS Burlington content head and producer, Tony (Stephen Root), is concerned about budget cuts. In hopes of gaining more viewership, Carl brings in a younger and more valiant next-generation painter, Ambrosia (Ciara Renee), to be the new host of the show. Ambrosia certainly has more range than just drawing the same vistas and ponds. During her appearance on the show, she paints a UFO hovering over a forest, and it doesn’t take long for her to take over Carl’s job indefinitely.

For the longest time, Carl was in a good spot. He is well-mannered and appears very gentlemanly on the surface, but beneath all that is a facade as it is revealed Carl is a womanizer and has a past of manipulating women for his own validations and vendettas, including the show’s producers Wendy (Wendi McLendon-Covey), whom he briefly dated to get even with his other fellow producer Katherine (Micheala Watkins), who cheated on him while they were in a relationship and whom Carl still has feelings for. As Carl’s passion for painting and local celebrity status go into decline, he only then opens up and gravitates toward his younger assistant, Jenna (Lucy Freyer), who at that point is already drained after having put all her energy into making a potential relationship work. Meanwhile, Carl reluctantly takes a job at the local university to train young artists how to paint, but that backfires once he slips into depression and discovers he’s way past his prime. His isolation only deepens once he discovers Ambrosia is in a relationship with the woman he still loves, which leads him to gaslight both Katherine and Ambrosia with sexism and misogyny.

Courtesy IFC FIlms 

While McAdam’s is aiming to make a satire about male patriarchal power and delusion, it could also be read as a commentary on how society too easily cancels out legendary figures. However, all attempts at social commentary feel forced. and precarious. The characterizations of nearly all the characters are one-dimensional. While revelations are made that Carl manipulated women around him and found his self-worth through sex, most of the women feel overly impressed by his status. For starters, Jenna is depicted as the opportunist as a social climber in the art world, as Carl’s affair with Wendy was in spite of Katherine failing to hold her psychical needs to a delivery man 20 years prior. Wendy also seems too obsessed with Carl to be validated as the accuser. Even the characterization of Tony not taking Carl’s art seriously feels lightly sketched. The film’s deliberately ambiguous era doesn’t have a sense of time or place, and it doesn’t end up doing much for the film either. Even with the lack of modern technology and cell phones and the appearance of older vehicles, with odd references to Dancing with the Stars, the film fails to ignite with its labored social commentary due to just how ineffective this creative deicsion is.

The best jokes and humor come during the final 30 minutes of the film, and it’s more beneficial to have a strong third act than a weak one. Though the middle section is so dry, you forget you’re watching a comedy with its banal human drama. It certainly has potential to be a rewarding quirky romp, but it’s nowhere as amusing as Waiting for Guffman, Walk Hard, or Anchorman, which are all films it’s channeling to be. With all the clever marketing by IFC Films in selling this film as a funny spoof of the late Bob Ross, Paint ends up being a massive letdown that should have been so much funnier.

Paint opens in theaters Friday, April 7th