From Dan Gilroy, writer and director of 2014's Nightcrawler comes Velvet Buzzsaw, a leap in the Hollywood direction that Netflix is trying to go. This film is interesting on many levels, given that it is one of Netflix's first original movies after officially becoming a part of the MPAA. This can be obviously seen in its absolutely loaded cast and big-budget elements, but it also, unfortunately, makes it vulnerable to the downfalls of this kind of cinema. This film is a decently-directed horror romp that fails to balance the main aspects of the genre: thrilling suspense and relieving humor. Despite the incredible cast carrying the entire movie, the script and pacing degraded the production as a whole too much for me to take the story seriously.
This film revolves around the world of art criticism and distribution and focuses on several characters that have been corrupted by their greed rather than actual appreciation for the artists' craft. My favorite part of this film was its cast and their undeniable chemistry together as their respective, peculiar characters. Morf (Jake Gyllenhaal), Rhodora (Rene Russo), Josephina (Zawe Ashton), Gretchen (Toni Collette), Coco (Natalia Dyer), Damrish (Daveed Diggs), Piers (John Malkovich), and Bryson (Billy Magnussen) are all heavy influencers in not just their fictional world of art, but also in how the story plays out. This cast is insane and even though they do not all interact with each other, the way that they bring out the setting of this film through their performances is great. The other big piece of this movie that I really enjoyed were its technical parts such as the production design and cinematography. Despite the lack of story buildup and as strange as it sounds, the death scenes involving the cursed art were beautiful. The creative ways that Gilroy was able to incorporate each characters' internal fears and past experiences into how they died was fantastic to see. Robert Elswit's camerawork was very interesting too, even though it was not necessarily groundbreaking or breathtaking. I loved his use of framing and the contrast between many elements of each character in the foregrounds and backgrounds.
Ever since this film's trailer was released earlier this year, I have been engrossed in the setting and horrific premise. A horror film set in the world of art criticism must lead to some amazing, metaphorical content, right? To some extent, yes. Gilroy's message throughout this movie, while creative in its delivery, was a bit too painfully obvious. The fact that every character who became obsessed with their greed were the ones that ended up getting killed was interesting to see, but amusing at the most. It did not help that Gilroy's writing and directing was just mediocre at best. This entire film was purely just a series of rising actions that led to nothing. I was expecting for there to be a final confrontation involving the spirit that had possessed the art or for one of the main characters to overcome its grasp, but nothing of the sort happened. I spent the entire duration of this film watching the creative ways these art brokers died, but these deaths did not really mean anything as it did not raise the stakes for any kind of main conflict. The tense horror scenes were done very well, accompanied by the haunting music, but I did not feel any kind of satisfying resolution to this story. Perhaps this also has to do with the limited dialogue. As interesting as it was to set a horror film in the world of art shows like these, I found myself lost in the way these characters talked to each other. I'm definitely no industry professional when it comes to art criticism and so I had a very hard time relating to anything they were saying.
Velvet Buzzsaw is a film about art critique that critiques the world of art. For a movie that contains a satirical message of "passion over profit," it is surprisingly devoid of passion. Gilroy did not completely nail the execution of this movie, as I feel like it was stuck in purgatory between satire and horror, not entirely able to choose which to focus on. I still enjoyed this film for the performances and fresh ideas, but I was overall completely underwhelmed.
My Rating: ★★★
No comments:
Post a Comment