PAINT

US, 2023, 95 minutes, Colour.

Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins, Ciara Renee, Elizabeth Henry, Paul Kosopod, Stephen Root, Michael Pemberton.

Directed by Britt McAdam.

Something of an oddball comedy drama.

American audiences, especially from the past, will realise that this film is based on the celebrity painter and television compere, Bob Ross. However, some reviewers were very hostile about the interpretation of Ross in this film, seeming to denigrate him.

Owen Wilson, with a somewhat alarming Afro, based on that of Bob Ross, is a long time television personality, with his own show, painting on set, charming to his audience and welcoming them to his places. We see admiring audiences in an aged care home, an artist, people in a bar, and the staff on the set, PBS Vermont.

But, there is a crisis at the studio, ratings, finance, and the upcoming artist who can do the same thing as her predecessor – only more so. And part of the crisis is the artist and his past, flashbacks to various encounters with the women who worked at the studio, seduction, relationships, abandonment. And this is especially true of the main executive at the studio, Katherine (Michaela Watkins), still in love with the artist but sometimes bewildered, attempting a relationship with the upcoming artist.

There is a strange atmosphere in the film, sometimes dramatic, sometimes comic, the artist, while ingratiate himself with his audience, not so much to the cinema audience. Complicated by his disregard of people after the affairs in the past, his obsession with painting a local mountain over and over and over again. There is also discussions with the director of the art gallery and whether he should be present in it.

It does build up to something of a climax, his modifying his Afro, taking the excess hair to his barn, smoking a cigarette, his dousing the barn with paint – and a vast painting of the mountain appearing – but, the spark, conflagration.

Reconciliation with Katherine, everyone presuming he was dead (speaking well about him and his paintings going up in price), and his disappearing with Katherine into the mountains.

1. The title, expectations? Artist? Television?
2. The central character based on television painter and producer, Bob Ross – but moving away from his actual life, comic variations?
3. The Vermont setting, mostly inside the television studio, offices, Carlton barn, the river, countryside? The musical score?
4. The basic premise, Owen Wilson as Carl, his Afro haircut, whispery seductive voice, his television program, doing a painting in each program, nature, the mountain, thinking audiences being with him? The scenes of admiring viewers, the couple and the group in the aged care home, the people at the bar, Mary the artist?
5. Carl, on television for several decades? His celebrity? Wilson’s comic style? The relationship with Katherine, the flashbacks of 22 years, his beginnings, his relationship with her, her work at the studio? But the break between them? Carl as a Don Juan, the women at the station, a series of seductions, his van, the response to his art? In the studio itself, the women on the team and their adulation? His smug acceptance of this status? People acknowledging him in the street, the young man in the car…?
6. Katherine, her role at studio, the relationship with Carl, the breakup, the years passing, Ambrosia, the relationship with her, meeting her parents? But her continued devotion to Carl, despite the termination of his program, the promotion of Ambrosia, her wanting to go to the main studios?
7. The range of other women, adulation for coal, seductions, experiences?
8. Ambrosia, her being promoted, her art talent, her show, initial reaction against, people drawn back, admiration for her? Her interactions with Carl? Relationship with Katherine? With other women, meeting her family?
9. Carl, age, going to the art gallery, the not wanting his paintings, the gallery chairman suggesting a pain from his heart, the news of his death, wanting paintings, their value?
10. The competitive program, the portrait of the lady from aged care, Carl painting scenery, Ambrosia painting her? The happy reaction?
11. Carl, Having to come to terms with himself? Seeking Katherine, apologising? The final show, painting her portrait, her watching the program, going to find?
12. Carl, the haircut, keeping his Afro, bringing the head back to the barn, the drugs, smoking, the fire, his bashing the paint everywhere – and the painting of the mountain? Katherine, rescuing him, rescuing the painting, escaping?
13. The aftermath, his reputation, the elimination of his pipe smoking from the previous programs, their being repeated? The gallery having painting? The gift to the barbershop?
14. Living in the mountains, with Katherine, her going to study, buying the groceries, his retirement?