VELVET BUZZSAW (2019)

Studio:      Netflix
Director:    Dan Gilroy
Writer:      Dan Gilroy
Producer:  Jennifer Fox
Stars:     Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen, John Malkovich

Review Score:

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Summary:

Mysterious paintings recovered from the home of a dead recluse curse a critic as well as agents and curators in L.A.’s art world.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Art critic Morf Vandewalt attends an art show in Miami Beach. Rival gallery owners Rhodora Haze and Jon Dondon also attend, along with LAMA curator Gretchen, artists Piers and Damrish, and Rhodora’s assistants Josephina, Coco, and Bryson.

Jon works to recruit Piers away from Rhodora. Rhodora convinces Damrish to leave his collective to exhibit with her. Despite still living with his boyfriend Ed, Morf renews a sexual relationship with Josephina. Everyone returns to L.A.

Josephina discovers the dead body of Vetril Dease, an undiscovered artist who lived as a recluse, in her apartment building. Josephina ends up recovering a large collection of paintings from Dease’s apartment. Josephina shows the art to Morf, who immediately becomes transfixed by Dease’s work.

Ben, who represents Damrish’s former art collective, comes to the Haze Gallery to angrily confront Rhodora. Rhodora later fires Coco for allowing Ben to get past reception.

Morf goes to see Gretchen at LAMA to ask if she knows anything about Vetril Dease. Gretchen reveals she is leaving the museum to become an art adviser for a private buyer. After Gretchen tries to bribe him, Morf becomes insulted by Gretchen’s insinuation that Rhodora colludes with Morf on his reviews to inflate the price of pieces in Rhodora’s collections.

Having heard about the Dease paintings from Bryson, Rhodora blackmails Josephina into partnering with her on dealing the art. Morf makes an arrangement with Rhodora to write the gallery brochure as well as a book about Dease and his artwork.

Morf discovers that Vetril Dease and his father were the only survivors of a suspicious house fire that killed Dease’s mother and younger sister. Child Protective Services removed Dease from his abusive father. Upon leaving an orphanage at age 18, Dease vanished for three decades until he appeared on the payroll of the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital, where he worked as a janitor for 42 years. Morf describes Dease’s work as an epic saga of violence and sadness that he used to deal with demons.

Josephina convinces Morf to ruin her unfaithful ex-boyfriend Ricky Blaine by negatively reviewing his latest show. Morf later learns that his review caused Ricky to crash his car while in a depressive spiral.

Rhodora and Josephina host an exhibition of Dease paintings. Acting as her buyer’s adviser, Gretchen makes a deal with Josephina to purchase several pieces. Piers and Damrish both become fascinated with Dease’s work.

Rhodora tasks Bryson with transporting several crates of Dease paintings to a storage facility in Lancaster. Bryson plots to take several pieces for himself when one of the paintings catches fire, causing him to crash into an abandoned gas station. While Bryson washes up in the restroom, monkey hands reach out from a painting on the wall to attack him.

Jon Dondon hires Coco so that he can learn details about Rhodora and the Dease collection. Gretchen compels former colleagues at LAMA to do a Dease exhibit based around her client’s pieces.

Morf talks to one of Dease’s former coworkers at the Veterans Administration. The coworker claims that Dease may have been responsible for another man’s murder. He also mentions that private investigator Ray Ruskinspear questioned him too.

Ray reports to Jon Dondon that Dease tortured his father to death and then spent two years in an asylum for the criminally insane where doctors experimented on inmates. Jon plots to use the information to disgrace Rhodora and lower the value of Dease’s work. A haunting film reel suddenly starts playing while Jon is alone. A hand comes from the ceiling to strangle Jon. Coco later discovers Jon’s body hanging from a noose.

Josephina takes a romantic interest in Damrish while attending Jon’s funeral. Rhodora learns that Piers began drinking again after seeing Dease’s work. Rhodora later urges Piers to take a break from art before addiction overtakes him again.

While having sex with Josephina, Morf becomes spooked by a Dease painting when he sees the images move. Josephina accuses Morf of still being in love with Ed. Morf furthers their frustrated fight by saying he regrets giving her ex a bad review.

Following an eye doctor appointment, Morf shouts at Gretchen over the phone for telling Josephina about Ed. Morf also visits Rhodora’s art analyst Gita, who mentions that she found blood and tissue within Dease’s paints.

While alone near the new Dease exhibit at LAMA, Gretchen puts her arm in an experimental piece titled ‘Sphere.’ The sphere rips off Gretchen’s arm and she bleeds to death. Patrons presume Gretchen’s bloody body to be part of the exhibit until Coco discovers it.

Morf discovers Josephina is sleeping with Damrish. Morf sees an image of Gretchen come to life on a bus poster. Morf hears his own voice maddeningly repeating negative reviews while experiencing an auditory art installation.

Putting together all of the deaths and strange experiences, Morf tells Rhodora he believes Dease’s work is supernaturally cursed and will kill anyone associated with it. Morf threatens to write an article exposing the evil artwork unless Rhodora destroys all of the paintings.

Rhodora and Josephina begin aggressively selling off the pieces. Morf calls Josephina with a warning that they are in danger.

Morf hires Coco as his new assistant. Coco reveals that Ed used to feed Rhodora advance info on Morf’s reviews so that Rhodora knew which pieces to buy.

Damrish tells Josephina he is breaking up with her as well as leaving Rhodora to return to Ben’s collective. Upset, Josephina ends up alone in an art gallery where paint liquefies into puddles that consume her. Josephina becomes part of a mural.

Morf takes his Dease paintings to a storage facility. Before he can seal the work away, Morf is murdered by an animatronic art piece titled ‘Hoboman’ that he criticized in Miami. Coco finds Morf’s body in the morning.

Rhodora is nearly killed by a large sculpture that falls in her yard. Convinced of the curse, Rhodora has all of Dease’s work removed from her home. However, the buzzsaw tattoo on Rhodora’s neck comes to life and kills her.

On her taxi ride out of town, Coco spots a man on the street selling discarded Dease paintings for $5. Piers is seen drawing in the sand on a beach.

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Review:

Writer/director Dan Gilroy’s 2014 thriller “Nightcrawler” is such a spectacular specimen of under-the-skin eeriness, I felt daunted by the prospect of reviewing it. I wasn’t positive I could put the movie’s macabre mood, slow boil intensity, or sharp style into the articulate terms they deserved. “Nightcrawler’s” unique exercise in atmospheric storytelling left me feeling it best to let other critics carry the burden of confining it within words.

It’s more challenging to figure out exactly what impression Gilroy’s 2019 thriller “Velvet Buzzsaw” makes. And yet curiously, it doesn’t similarly tie my tongue.

That’s partly because, like the subject matter Gilroy skewers, there can’t possibly be any “right” or “wrong” takes regarding the work. Sometimes profound, sometimes confounding, sometimes inspired, sometimes insipid, “Velvet Buzzsaw” can’t be caged by criticism. Or perhaps its dissociative identity disorder indicates the creator couldn’t care less what anyone thinks.

“Velvet Buzzsaw” is predominantly a dramatic thriller, at least I think so, albeit one with an impishly skewed sense of humor. Not incorrectly, other sources qualify their descriptions with “comedic” or “satirical.” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders’ mildly mischievous score certainly sets a stage for dark quirkiness, although it still took me over half of the runtime before I finally accepted that the movie might be telling a joke rather than being the butt of one.

Partially as a formality, I’ll recap relevant pips from the plot. It should still be understood that story seems secondary to a primary intent to parody.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays bisexual art critic Morf Vandewalt. If that name sounds peculiar, note that supporting characters go by Rhodora, Vetril, Damrish, and other assemblies of vowels and consonants that Microsoft Word underlines in red. “Velvet Buzzsaw” isn’t even off the page yet and it already finds a way to preach against pretension.

I only mention Morf’s sexual orientation because Gyllenhaal hammily overplays him like an effeminate pastiche. I’m not sure if Gyllenhaal’s portrayal is an insensitively insulting caricature or a bitingly bizarre send-up of stereotypes. That’s a confusing quality of “Velvet Buzzsaw” as a whole. Either way, it’s Gyllenhaal doing a bit in much the same way his sore thumb stuck out in “Okja” (review here).

Rene Russo also plays an archetype as an unrepentantly cutthroat art gallery owner, but better levels the seesaw between wicked assertiveness and approachable personality. Her collected yin tempers Gyllenhaal’s scattered yang just as it did in their previous collaboration with director Dan Gilroy.

Gyllenhaal’s Morf and Russo’s Rhodora are two of the people in orbit around a mysterious dead man’s collection of cursed paintings. Backbiting, backstabbing, condescension, and posturing are common in their fashionably weird world where struggling agents, fleeting fame artists, and conniving curators scheme with and against one another. As is the case whenever word of a scorching new talent consumes the outsider art scene, everyone eagerly competes for a piece of the dead man’s strangely spellbinding pie. Figuratively, they’re willing to die over the seemingly supernatural art. Literally, that’s exactly what happens.

Vetril Dease, the dead mystery man, gets a hand-wave backstory about suspicious family deaths, being institutionalized in an asylum where doctors experimented on inmates, and other familiar bits that’ll have horror fans circling index fingers in “yeah, yeah” motions. One spooky sequence sees a random cut to a creepy doll that opens its eyes for no real reason. Then there are several jump scare misdirects including, I kid you not, the dusty chestnut of a cat jumping out for a “gotcha!”

“Nightcrawler” proves Dan Gilroy can deliver terror as a texture. Here, the filmmaker steers instead down an avenue of uncharacteristically tangible tropes. Gilroy possesses a mind that knows how on-the-nose certain cinema clichés are. So the question becomes, does he mean to smartly mock horror like he mocks art star egos, or cavalierly employ clichés in the oblivious interests of mediocre entertainment?

That’s the conundrum “Velvet Buzzsaw” presents. Gilroy and company seem to be subtly having irreverent fun playing make-believe, but at whose expense? If you’re not smirking snootily along with the movie, you might be among those being laughed at. That certainly applies to art aficionados, portrayed as people in high ankle slacks sipping rosé from champagne flutes whose pork pie hats won’t fit when they cram their heads up their own asses. But it also applies to anyone who expects a movie more sinisterly sizzling than meanderingly mean.

Purely as a narrative, “Velvet Buzzsaw” possesses the problem of too many characters it either doesn’t need or whose purposes are so cursory, their inclusions could be cut considerably. Unnecessarily overstuffed content suggests Gilroy might have been better able to make his point in 90 minutes instead of 110. Then again, since I’m not entirely sure what the movie’s point is, I shouldn’t be one to judge.

What does “Velvet Buzzsaw” ultimately have to say? Maybe its unclear intentions are part of its uncertain point. Perhaps the movie is such an ouroboros of meta commentary on artistic culture that it winkingly represents precisely the kind of pompous pieces and delusional gawkers it lampoons. That might therefore qualify “Velvet Buzzsaw” as Dan Gilroy’s deliciously devious masterpiece: a self-aware study in subversion so nattily stylized, it simultaneously champions and criticizes itself as ambiguous art.

From a more practical perspective, “Velvet Buzzsaw” is a vain vagary inviting, I’d even say daring, individual viewers to apply their own interpretations of value. Everyone will divine his/her own meaning out of the experience.

The art world metaphor applies no matter what. The flash of notable names in a boutique Netflix piece from an evolving auteur makes it the sort of thing chin-stroking film festival programmers lose their minds over. Those afraid to admit “I don’t get it” among philosophical peers may invent imaginary substance to put the movie on a pedestal it doesn’t rightfully earn. Or maybe “Velvet Buzzsaw” is merely a middling movie that won’t inspire much lasting buzz at all. How appropriate of a period would that put on its statement about overinflated art?

Review Score: 50

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