Art School Confidential

Starring: Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Ethan Suplee, Anjelica Huston
Directed by: Terry Zwigoff
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Box Office: $201,578,182
2006

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A young artist (Max Minghella) attends art school to become the world's greatest artist. He falls in love with a beautiful model (Sophia Myles) and tries to impress a talented teacher (John Malkovich).

Review:

Tim: This movie had the potential to be absolutely hilarious. The trailer was one of the best I had seen in years (I probably watched it 25 times). The movie itself, however, disappoints. This is unfortunate, and wastes the talents of those involved. This could have been something special.

The movie starts out strongly enough—we see our protagonist starting art school, interacting with the strange and unique students and professors. John Malkovich stands out as one of the strongest performers. I loved the exchange—“How long have you been doing the triangles?” Malkovich takes a drag from his cigarette and dryly replies, “I was one of the first.” I loved this scene. Sadly, my favorite scene from the trailer didn’t even make it into the movie. It’s Malkovich again, and he delivers this line as only he can—“Can any of you do one single thing I haven’t seen one million times before?” I love it, and I was very upset to learn it didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie.

Art School Confidential works when we see the quirky and odd life you lead when you are attending art school. This is looked upon realistically, and probably cynically as well. This is the strongest part of the movie, and it is great. Sadly, this Jekyl and Hyde film also happens to be about a killer murdering people at the school. This part of the film absolutely does not work at all. As the film moves further away from the former and more toward a murder mystery, it loses all its effectiveness. The house of cards tumbles in upon itself, and we’re left with a confused, ridiculous movie that almost completely washes out any of the goodwill it had build up over its first 45 minutes. In the end, this is a film that could have been great, but its shortcomings make it only mediocre.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Ghost World, Evolution, The Great Buck Howard