Movie Review: 'Paint' is Deeply Misunderstood and Amusing

Paint (2023)

Directed by Brit McAdams

Written by Brit McAdams

Starring Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins

Release Date April 7th, 2023

Publish April 11th, 2023

Paint is weird. While everyone is caught up in Owen Wilson's Bob Ross impression, what's lost is a timeless story of a fragile male ego, an unrequited love story, and a story that seems to play out in a timeless void somewhere between the 1970s and the 1990s. If Wes Anderson were to direct a late night Adult Swim program, it might play a lot like Paint. The tone is tricky and odd but I kept finding myself charmed by it. I laughed plenty during Paint and that goes a long way to helping me forgive the messier elements of the story.

Paint stars Owen Wilson as Carl Nargle, a big fish in the small pond of the Vermont art world. Carl's show, Paint, on Vermont's biggest PBS station, is the most watched show in the state. People's lives come to a stop to watch Carl's latest variation on a nature scene revolving around Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield. Carl's a star on screen and off where he has a devoted staff of women dedicated to his needs. Wendy McClendon Covey, Lusia Strus, and Lucy Freyer, play generations of women who may or may not have been Carl's lover at some point.

The love of Carl's life however, is his longtime producer, Katherine (Michaela Watkins). The two came to Vermont together, started his show together and seemed to be madly in love. Sadly, as Carl's star rose, he lost track of Catherine and she had an affair. Guilt-stricken, she tells Carl about the affair and the two are driven apart by the blow to Carl's massive ego. Paint is unafraid to point a critical eye at Carl, even as it was Catherine who strayed. Carl was the one who let fame go to his head and he failed to maintain their romance while nursing his love of the limelight.

The plot of Paint kicks into gear when Carl's ego causes him to reject the idea of making his daily painting show two hours with two paintings every day. This leads Carl's boss, Stephen Root, to hire another painter to host the second hour of Paint. Ambrosia (Ciara Renee) immediately grabs the spotlight with her colorful approach to painting and highly unusual subjects. Instead of mountainsides with various heights of trees, Ambrosia's first painting is an alien ship spraying blood over a stump in a random forest.

Little touches like this are at the heart of Paint. Strange little asides, such as Carl warning of controversy because he painted an extra-large tree this week, something he sees as incredibly sexual, and a running gag about members of Ambrosia's family having known the women she begins sleeping with at the PBS station, are just odd enough to give Paint the feel of something far less than conventional. It's an odd sense of humor that sets Paint aside from other comedies. The tone is tricky and may not work on most audiences but it kind of worked on me.

Paint is akin to a modern parody of the idea of Bob Ross without being about Bob Ross. It's very much a Bob Ross-esque character, they've certainly borrowed his aesthetic and hairstyle, but it's not a Bob Ross movie. Rather, it's an almost Airplane/Naked Gun style parody of Bob Ross. A loving gentle and very odd yet kind wholesome send up unfolds in Paint. The seventies aesthetic Carl Nargle exists, much like Bob Ross, in a strangely timeless universe where it's nearly impossible to tell what year it is and somehow, this is part of the charm of the movie.

Paint is very much a movie you have to buy into. If you don't vibe with Paint, you may find yourself miserable, watching characters you don't care about working through story mechanics about a strange guy and the odd women who care about him and lose interest along the way. But, if you frame the film a I did, as a send up of a Bob Ross movie, you might find yourself quite amused by Paint. I found the oddity of Paint grew on me over the course of the film. I think the oddity is the point, it's essential to portraying the film as a send-up rather than a straight-forward narrative. I bought in and by the end of Paint, I was genuinely won over.

Owen Wilson understands what is asked of him in Paint. He's clearly observed Bob Ross but, more to the point of this performance, he's observed oddball narcissists whose fragile egos make them a subject of mockery that they can't begin to understand. The fine line between people loving and pitying a man like Carl Nargle, is incredibly thin and Wilson's ability to be both affected by the growing mockery of his l life and oblivious to how silly he truly looks, is a magic trick that only an actor of his talent can pull off.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed this review, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one-time tip. Thanks!