A two-dimensional painting has more life than “Velvet Buzzsaw.”
This Netflix original film takes place in the dark underbelly of the art world. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as art critic Morf Vandewalt, who is both feared and widely respected in the art scene. Morf rekindles a relationship with Josephina (Zawe Ashton), an old friend who works at a local art gallery. One day, Josephina returns home to her apartment building and finds her neighbor dead in the hallway. She enters his apartment and finds a vast collect of paintings. Josephina steals the paintings to show off to Morf and her employer.
The paintings are put into an exhibition and become an instant success. This is where things start to get interesting. Morf begins researching the artist and finds out he suffers from a troubled and abusive childhood, which begins to show as his work progresses throughout the years. As this work begins to circulate around the community, some very bad things begin to happen to those who profit off the deceased artist.
For such a zany plot, the film is shockingly dull. Netflix promoted this film as a sort of artsy horror film. The horror doesn’t find its way into the story until nearly half way through. “Velvet Buzzsaw” barely makes any impact in its first half hour. In fact, I was quite literally falling asleep waiting for the action to start.
It’s quite a shame, because writer and director Dan Gilroy recruited quite the ensemble for this movie. Rene Russo plays a major part in the film with Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen in supporting roles. Audiences can typically rely on Magnussen for solid comedic relief, Malkovich for cerebral paranoia and Collette for a juicy dramatic performance. But these three are sorely underutilized. Seriously, how do you waste Toni Collete in a horror film? Did Gilroy miss a little film called “Hereditary?”
Gyllenhaal provides the sole entertaining performance in this film. It’s clear he had a blast enveloping of an arrogant and flamboyant art critic. It’s a lot of fun to watch Gyllenhaal’s transform from spitting out lines like “I am not your mouthpiece!” to an angry artist to slowly becoming unraveled upon realizing the horror he is involved with. But unfortunately it’s not enough to carry the whole movie.
Gyllenhaal previously worked with Gilroy on “Nightcrawler,” which was the latter’s directorial debut. The duo created a slick, eerie and engaging film helmed by Gyllenhaal’s incredible performance. Unfortunately, the duo is unable to recreate that magic here. “Velvet Buzzsaw” offers an interesting take on the importance of valuing art. But that is just about all this film offers.
-by Brynne Ramella
