Final Portrait (2018)

Film: Final Portrait (2018)
Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clemence Poesy, Tony Shalhoub
Director: Stanley Tucci
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

When I first re-started this blog, one of the reasons that I did was because I had virtually no memories of the movie My Sister Eileen starring Rosalind Russell and Brian Aherne.  According to my Oscar charts, I had clearly seen the film before-it was marked in most of my Oscar charts, but for some reason when I read a description of the film on IMDB, there were no bells ringing, and thus I realized that even though I'm blessed with a weirdly good memory for the cinema, there was still a finite amount of space for the films that I had seen in my memory.  Thus, a blog where I kept track of said movies and wrote reviews I could later reference, hoping to jog my memory but at least filled with my immediate (or when I'm running behind which seems to be constantly, semi-immediate thoughts), was a blessing and something I needed to track.

What I didn't expect was to have movies now, nearly six years after bringing the blog back, that were modern that I still couldn't remember, and yet they're littered on this site.  Every year there's 1-2 movies that by the end of the year or a year later I am shocked to remember I saw, or that I really don't remember that well.  This makes sense since I see hundreds of pictures each year (both modern and classic), but it still feels like a bit of a "whoa-that was a movie" for me, particularly when they're films that got almost no ink.  It's not hard to see where I'm going with this, but if the "John of 2020" is reading this (and if you are, sign up for another phone-banking shift to beat whichever Republican is in the White House), yes, Final Portrait was a movie you saw (in an empty theater, for the record, which is cool for about two seconds and then a bummer because even bad movies you want to see make money, if only to keep the theater's lights on) & that existed.

(Real Life Doesn't Need Spoiler Alerts) The film is pretty straight-forward.  It follows famed biographer James Lord (Hammer) during the early period of his life (though not so early that this focuses on his relationship with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar, which would have arguably made the more interesting movie), as he is painted by Alberto Giacometti (Rush).  The movie unfolds revealing the inner-turmoil and madness of Giacometti during the late period of his life, as he moved away from the world of sculpture that found him international fame and once again into painting, in what would become the final portrait of his career.  The movie's main premise is that the portrait will only take a few hours to paint, but instead takes two weeks, with Lord's patience growing thin as he learns about Giacometti.

Except, and I want to put this as clearly as possible: nothing happens.  Literally, nothing.  The movie is perplexing and an oddity in that there's virtually no conflict.  We're left to assume that Lord will eventually quarrel with Giacometti, that we'll gain more introspection of this character on-screen and the man behind the genius, but that's not really what Final Portrait is capable of accomplishing, apparently.  So thinly drawn are these characters that the famously larger-than-life Rush and the hot-off-a-career-best-performance Hammer can't begin to find a connection with these characters.  The script is paper thin, to an unusual degree (the characters, when occasionally faced with consequences, get out of them so easily you'd think this was the ninth season of a sitcom).  On some level it feels like Tucci was attempting to make a movie about the artistic process, but even there he fails.  Giacometti is made as a puttering, philandering genius, though presented oddly free of judgment from pretty much anyone on screen or off, but his process feels like that of a fool.  And yet Tucci can't seem to find a connection with a man who was one of the great artists of his generation.  The only times that the movie survives is the occasional walk through the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and both Lord & Picasso engage in some banter & name-dropping.  Hammer & Rush are too good of actors to not make this rare bit of fun work to their advantage, relishing moments to lean into their respective charms.  But by-and-large this movie is both literally and figuratively about watching paint dry, and is so devoid of purpose it's hard to imagine a non-movie star director getting it greenlit.