Paint Review: Owen Wilson-Led Homage to Bob Ross Falls Flat
The post Paint Review: Owen Wilson-Led Homage to Bob Ross Falls Flat appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: In Paint, Owen Wilson stars as Carl Nargle, a successful painter with a Vermont Public Access TV show simply titled Paint. Modeled generally after the late (and great) painter and TV host Bob Ross, there are lots of similarities between the two when it comes to characterization and artistic style: Both have iconic ’70s perms, both speak in a warm, gentle whisper, and both have an affinity for painting idyllic, inspired scenes of the natural world.
Though Nargle has become a beloved staple of Vermont television over the years, his status is threatened by the arrival of a new painter, Ambrosia (Ciara Renée), who seeks to paint outside the box and allow artwork from her imagination to inspire the next generation of painters. Nargle, meanwhile, finds himself stuck in the past — he spends much of his time roaming through Burlington in his colorful, decked-out sprinter van (complete with a custom sofa bed), attempting to paint the perfect portrait of Vermont’s Mount Mansfield, and wishing he could reunite with his once-true love, Katherine (Michaela Watkins).
As Ambrosia grows in popularity, both audiences and the TV station’s staff — including Katherine and the station’s manager, Tony (Stephen Root) — begin to focus their appreciation on her, rather than the unanimously-loved Nargle. This conflict becomes the catalyst for Nargle’s existential crisis, and he spends much of the film contemplating his purpose as an artist and as a person.
As a now middle-aged Nargle attempts to find his identity, Paint seeks to illuminate the big questions around art in general. What does it mean to create from your “soul”? How do the boxes we create within represent our fears and beliefs? By seeking artistic perfection and cultural legacy, are we holding ourselves back? And, perhaps primarily, what would it look like if Bob Ross went through a mid-life crisis? Though ambitious and tonally specific, Paint doesn’t provide many answers to these queries; but as Bob Ross would say, “There are no mistakes. Just happy accidents.”
Let’s Go to a Special Place: Paint often succeeds the most in its depiction of modern-day Vermont, and the way a character like Nargle would serve as a cultural king to the region. There’s an overwhelming quaintness and wholesome quality to the settings and characters in Paint; even the TV studio, with its generic office ennui and small-town staff, has a comforting, lived-in atmosphere.
He may move from girlfriend to girlfriend (specifically the station’s female staff members), but Nargle is characterized as a sweet, generally inoffensive guy. It’s very easy to root for not just him, but several of the film’s principal characters — Ambrosia included. It’s this wholesome vibe that writer and director Brit McAdams successfully uses to show that the primary conflict in the film is not necessarily spawned from an external source, but Nargle’s internal one.
Paint (IFC Films)
This is a world where the characters don’t have explicit ill-will toward each other, as exemplified when Nargle confronts Tony about Ambrosia cutting into his filming schedule: Tony asks Nargle, “Are you going to yell at me?,” to which he responds “Yes!”… before proceeding to complain to Tony in a slightly louder whisper than his normal, hushed speaking voice. Even in his scenes with Ambrosia, Nargle isn’t aggressive or resentful towards her; if anything, he’s just resigned.
Beyond Nargle’s existential crisis, however, the film’s pacing and emphasis on the natural world — both as inspiration to Nargle and as the story’s idyllic setting — are key components to the film’s grand theme: instead of focusing on perfection and career-defining legacy, focus on what’s right in front of you, what you already have. Nargle’s goal is to craft a portrait of Mount Mansfield so perfect that it’s displayed in the Burlington Museum of Art, so at nearly every taping of Paint, Carl paints… Mount Mansfield. It symbolizes his personal and professional rut, until his stubbornness finally reaches a breaking point.
The Verdict: It’s fitting that Paint does not serve as a traditional Bob Ross biopic, and instead leans on a new, fictional story set in modern-day Vermont, melding some of Ross’ signature traits with Carl Nargle. But there are two tricky sides to the biopic coin — using Ross’ life as a backdrop would lock the filmmakers into a limited story arc, but on the other hand, forging a new one requires the brave act of having something to say about an artist like Bob Ross.
McAdams certainly hammers in some appropriate themes about the artistic process, aging, and honoring a relationship in which you feel seen, but other than that, the film can’t quite separate itself from the quaint malaise of its setting. At its best, Paint is a delightful and occasionally awkward ode to art, and how it defines us as creators and consumers. But at its worst, Paint feels, well, pointless.
Performance-wise, however, Wilson and Watkins are ideal performers to root a film like this in, and their chemistry provides more warmth to an otherwise stale environment. Both stars are more than adept at committing themselves to a “less-is-more” comedic sensibility, and Wilson in particular truly transforms. But the unfortunate fact is that the film’s quiet, introverted tone restricts Paint from having a quick, effortless levity, and the actors they’ve brought on to balance it out — Root, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Lusia Strus, in particular — can’t save the film from its banal atmosphere.
Yet, finding a way to demonstrate the emotional impact of a Bob Ross-type character is certainly worth a shot. McAdams honors Ross’ legacy by showing not just Nargle’s life, but a small selection of the lives he’s impacted; the adoration depicted in a nursing home, the comfort felt by two men in a bar, a middle-aged woman’s earnest attempt to recreate Nargle’s paintings in real-time. All of these figures find a true escape in Nargle’s work and ethos — something that even Bob Ross’ most casual viewers understood and celebrated during his lifetime.
This is a touching aspect that can really lift Paint at times, but only before it tumbles back down to a hushed whisper.
Where to Watch: Paint hits theaters on Friday, April 7th.
Trailer:
Paint Review: Owen Wilson-Led Homage to Bob Ross Falls Flat
Paolo Ragusa
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