Paint Review: Owen Wilson colors outside the lines
Dry, sorrowful comedy offers a clever take on modern maleness and a certain PBS favorite
Film Reviews Owen Wilson
In the mostly delightful farce Paint, Owen Wilson proves he knows the difference between a comic actor and a comedian who acts. The frequently riotous script by writer-director Brit McAdams feels like it was written with Will Ferrell in mind, circa Anchorman. There’s a savagely satirized and archetypal central character, loosely based on public TV painting instructor Bob Ross; a workplace power struggle nominally embedded in what used to be called the Battle of the Sexes; and ceaseless mockery aimed at the badly aged hairstyles and vehicle habits of the Scooby-Doo era. As a former sketch comic, Ferrell mainly inhabited broad, high-concept characters like NASCAR legend Ricky Bobby, anchorman Ron Burgundy, and Buddy the Elf, all of whom would not have seemed out of place in a ’90s episode of Saturday Night Live.
Paint’s Carl Nargle is a character like that too: the most popular local PBS TV personality in all of Burlington, Vermont—which doesn’t sound like much of an achievement until it starts to slip away from you, as it does from Carl. Sporting a white boy ’fro and driving a Chevy van that could pass for the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, Carl is a sexist dinosaur who has bedded the entire female staff of his local PBS affiliate, breaking hearts and compromising productivity in a single swoop. He’s a narcissist too, though he pretends to be the caring, John Denver folkie type. In the early oughts, Ferrell would have had a field day with him.
Wilson does too, but it’s a field day of a different type. Carl’s heart is broken, and that’s not a comedy trope in Paint—Wilson makes you feel it, and it’s the buried sorrow that makes Carl run. The love of his life, Katherine (Michaela Watkins, channeling Catherine Keener), cheated on Carl when the local celebrity turned his head, and now she runs the station in all but name. So Carl gets to witness Katherine’s romantic dalliance with Ambrosia (Ciara Renee), the edgy and multicultural street artist hired to replace him.
Wilson, whose dad ran a public television station in Dallas, saw something great in McAdams’ script, and reportedly tried to get it made for years. Wilson isn’t making fun of Carl’s feelings, he’s playing them with every subatomic particle of his hangdog soul. While this doesn’t make Carl less absurd, it does ground him long enough to illuminate the acute sense of male dislocation Carl’s absurdity flows from.
Because from Groundhog Day to Anchorman 2, what are these comedies of emasculation really talking about? If you binge-watch the collected works of Bill Murray and Will Ferrell, pausing only for an occasional stopover in Adam Sandler-land, what materializes behind the schtick is the dread and uncertainty of modern maleness—a fear, expressed through characters of pushy cluelessness, that the world isn’t just changing for men, it’s melting under their feet. When Carl’s facade of nurturing is pierced by the only woman left at the station still taking him seriously—and the spell he’s held over the women in his life is irrevocably broken—he doesn’t deflate like the balloon in the cliche; he collapses, then bluffs, then collapses again, an inflatable tube man at a used car dealership, held together by nothing but air.
The fear so many modern men have isn’t that they’ll be laughed at, but that they’ll be laughed at behind their backs, and it may be happening already. The job of a movie like Paint is to draw that laugh out in public—exorcising the demon by externalizing its power. And while it’s possible to quibble about the weirdly sci-fi mix of period signifiers (white boy afros exist beside cellphones), and to look askance at Paint’s rather too blithe approach to sex-in-the-workplace power dynamics, few comedies in recent memory come by their laughs more honestly than Paint does because, like all the best comedies, the laughter is based on a genuine unease.
There’s slapstick comedy here too, including a belly laugh of a scene where Carl smashes his paint covered ‘do into a wall in a desperate attempt to expand his range and save his reputation by painting something other than Vermont’s Mt. Mansfield. Poor Bob Ross’ reputation may not recover. Then again, it tarnished rather quickly once he was gone. But while Carl Nargle may not be much of an artist, thanks to Wilson and McAdams’ care and craft, his own image is indelible.
(Paint opens in theaters on April 7.)
55 Comments
Poor Bob Ross’ reputation may not recover. Then again, it tarnished rather quickly once he was gone.
I hadn’t heard his reputation was tarnished at all.
I have to consider the possibility the writer doesn’t know what “tarnished” means. Because otherwise that sentence makes no sense.
Every AV Club article should be read with that possibility in mind.
I’m starting to suspect ChatGPT is being used more and more
No, Chat GPT writes better
I wouldn’t say “tarnished” but Ross did cheat on his wives and maybe could have been a better father, and also allowed some unsavory business types to use his name and likeness to get rich. He didn’t ensure that his family would have any rights to the business, and after his death they took it all. The Bob Ross paintbrushes and tubes of paint seen in stores today are basically stolen bullshit; not a cent of that money goes to the Ross family.
I think he meant “garnished.”
So, you ever hear a word you just like the sound of? Maybe you like how it looks on a page, maybe someone you idolise used it in speech, and so you think, gosh dang it, you just have to start using it, because you think it’ll make you look good and smart and such, you know?Of course you fucking don’t. Because you’re not an idiot. Unfortunately, that’s a prerequisite for writing for the AVC these days.
It’s not. I have no idea what Ray is going on about.
Honestly I never heard a single bad thing about Bob Ross since he died and that’s something.Not really liking using his likeness for this movie. Bob was a ray of sunshine for me.Cheers
The only kinda-bad thing I’ve ever heard about him is that he basically swiped his whole technique and show idea from Bill Alexander.
Who in turn actually wasn’t upset at first as he saw Ross as someone he mentored. What got Alexander annoyed is when Ross became far more successful than he did. Which is understandable if not very noble. I say that as someone who has mentored many people and am generally pleased that they do well in life, but I’m selfishly annoyed at a couple of my mentees who have gone on to massive success. I know, I should be happy for them; that’s the right thing to do. But still.
The idea probably, although Bob style was the trump card of the success, the technique he discovered with Alexander, he worked with him, but it’s a very old technique also known as Alla Prima, if I remember correctly. Cheers
There was some ugly family squabbling over his estate, but nothing salacious about Bob Ross himself that I ever hear. Maybe he’s confusing Ross with fellow PBS host Garrison Keillor, although I don’t know how you could ever possibly confuse the two. You might as well mix them up with Mr. Rogers or Big Bird.
And Garrison Keillor is very much still alive.
I’m pretty sure Big Bird is, too. The first guy to perform in the suit, not so much.
Look into the The Kowalski family who still runs and operates Bob Ross Inc. Pretty awful.
If anything, Bob Ross’s reputation has grown since his death. He was kind of a joke during his PBS run, but there seems to be a growing appreciation of how he changed himself from a hard-nose air force NCO to basically a Mr. Rogers for adults. And, he seems to have genuinely inspired many people to take up painting as a hobby.
Maybe in the aftermath of Bob’s death that his business partner took over the Bob Ross empire, forcing out Bob’s son (who went through a period of alcoholism before doing his own videos). Bob tried to head it off on his deathbed but was unsuccessful. So… I dunno, maybe the Bob Ross brand?
Maybe he got canceled or did something or was part of something taboo today that he didn’t know was bad??? Seems all actors and workers dont live up to today’s standards and we should just…assume and take all people as the worst THINGGS ON EARRRTHHH XD
what’s so funny??
You can be better than this. Don’t embrace idiocy just because you perceive others as smarter than you.
Ross just could not stop eating babies. Had deep-fried baby three times a day.
I like to think most of those babies were happy accidents.
There was a lot of acrimony that developed between him and Bill Alexander, who felt that Ross co-opted the wet-on-wet technique that Alexander popularized and taught to Ross.
Michaela Watkins should be in more things.Also, “Trophy Wife” was a funny but terribly named sitcom that suffered tremendously from it.
“Trophy Wife” was a funny but terribly named sitcom that suffered tremendously from it. See also : “Cougartown”. Not sure if it suffered, but boy it was a fun show, and when I recommend it to people I have to tell them to ignore the title. And also to know that after the initial episodes, that “cougar” premise was pretty well disposed of.
Also Selfie, which(like Trophy Wife) I haven’t seen but have heard is good. Apparently early 2010s ABC had a thing for poorly-named sitcoms.
Yeah, I haven’t been able to track down a way to see Selfie, but it’s supposed to be great. And yes, one of the dumb-named sitcoms…
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend also suffered from a non-indicative, regressive title.
She had a great run in “Casual,” now on Hulu.
He should’ve had a show about oral hygiene: “Gargle With Nargle”.
Or a Graham Norton type talk showArgle-Bargle with Nargle
This is a really positive review for a final grade of a B! I hate to focus too much on the grade here, but I’m curious what issues the movie has that keep it from being an A?
And the Super Mario Bros. Movie also got a B but the review read much much worse than a B. I’m starting to think these letters are meaningless!
I’m starting to think that most of what is written in these “articles” are meaningless. ;)Cheers
I’m starting to think that most of what is written in these “articles” are meaningless. ;)- The AV Club
it’s the arbitrary letter score that’s meaningless.
Because from Groundhog Day to Anchorman 2, what are these comedies of emasculation really talking about?“Comedies of emasculation?” That’s a terrible way to put it. Personal growth and self-improvement (the message behind Groundhog Day, at least. I haven’t seen Anchorman 2) are not emasculating, and referring to them as such only feeds into r/theredpill bullshit.
Indeed. It has been a longtime since I watched Groundhog Day, but I can’t think of even one scene that I would characterize as emasculating – depriving of masculine strength or spirit.
“The fear so many modern men have isn’t that they’ll be laughed at, but that they’ll be laughed at behind their backs, and it may be happening already.” What?
And while it’s possible to quibble about the weirdly sci-fi mix of period signifiers (white boy afros exist beside cellphones), You’ve never visited Vermont, have you?
Or jew-fros. My jewish stepbrother sported one loud and proud.
“Wilson isn’t making fun of Carl’s feelings, he’s playing them with every subatomic particle of his hangdog soul. While this doesn’t make Carl less absurd, it does ground him long enough to illuminate the acute sense of male dislocation Carl’s absurdity flows from.”I mean, this is why Farrel would not have worked. It makes a different film.
The fear so many modern men have isn’t that they’ll be laughed at, but that they’ll be laughed at behind their backs, and it may be happening already.I guess I’m not a “modern” man, because I feel no such fears. Is this really a thing?
Yet another reason why this review feels like it was written from within a particular bubble.
It’s clearly a play on the old Margaret Atwood saw about the worst fear of men and women, but even with the movie’s Battle of the Sexes theme, it comes off really opague here.
The quote should have been modern “males.” Actual men have no such concerns.
Wait, does that make you feminine? I don’t know where the author was taking this strangely, and pointlessly, gendered factoid.
He looks like the Burger King mascot sans rings and a looser curl.
Groundhog Day isn’t about emasculating Bill Murray, it’s about the struggles of self-improvement and becoming a better person. And I’m pretty sure that Bob Ross’s reputation and fame has grown, not diminished, since his death.I dunno. This movie looks pretty good and all, but it kind of seems like this review has taken the default position that anything which features a flawed male protagonist is actually about how all men are pathetic losers, and is subsequently twisting facts to fit the premise a little bit.
Disrespectful to Bob Ross’s memory and legacy. But he spoke softly and had big hair so, sure, have fun with that.
It reminds me of the show Kidding, which had the premise of “we know against all odds it seems like Mr Rogers really was about 95% the person he claimed to be, but wouldn’t it be more interesting if he were repressing his dark nature and navigating a world of sub-Six Feet Under bullshit?” Spoiler alert; it was not.
Proof out loud that AV Club is a large lit student with short bangs and winged glasses who hates men.
I don’t know who this movie is supposed to mock, ‘parody’ or otherwise humiliate but, aside from the painterly bits, it bears absolutely no relationship to Ross’ s life or career. And reviews reflect was a humorless, incoherent mess this is. Can’t imagine why Wilson got involved with this.“Let’s put a happy little dollar bill right here next to the mountain…”