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closeWednesday, Nov. 04, 2009
'Untitled' a very funny satire of art world
Parker Film Co./Samuel Goldwyn Films
ART LOVERS: Adam Goldberg and Marley Shelton star in (Untitled). Parker Film Co./Samuel Goldwyn Films
(Untitled)
****
R (strong language, nude images); 96 min.
Director Jonathan Parker and co-writer Catherine DiNapoli have made a film of such shrewdness and sophistication that they’re bound to be punished for it. (Untitled) is a very funny satire of the art world that doesn’t do the easy things that a typical satire might do. It doesn’t have a hero who’s right and everyone else is wrong. And though it mocks every character, it dismisses nobody.
Along the way, the filmmakers’ ideas come through. Though framed within a satire, (Untitled) contains some of the best conversations about art, and its function and significance, that you’ll hear in a film this year.
Particularly impressive is Marley Shelton as Madeleine, a gallery owner who likes the most pretentious, awful nonart imaginable. Any other film would have made her into a cynic, a villain or a fool, but instead she’s presented as someone who sincerely believes that placing a thumbtack on a blank wall constitutes significant art— and she has arguments to back herself up.
The cash cow of her gallery is Josh (Eion Bailey), whose pastel, expressionist paintings are a big hit in doctor offices and hotel lobbies. He makes a good living, but he lacks the validity that a gallery exhibition might bring. Madeleine won’t give him one — and in any other movie, he would be portrayed as the one man of integrity in a city of frauds and poseurs. But no. He’s superficial.
At the center of (Untitled) is Adam Goldberg as Adrian, an avant-garde musician whose compositions are so repellent that Madeleine likes them. Adrian is a comic character — his performances make for some of the movie’s funniest moments — and Goldberg plays him with a perpetual scowl. Yet Goldberg and the filmmakers never lose sight of Adrian’s journey.
Though the movie is meant as an amusement, you may find yourself sharpening your own arguments and your own aesthetic by engaging with the ideas put forth. Exclusive: Landmark Magnolia, Dallas; Angelika Plano
— Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
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