Local Color

Rating

Director

George Gallo

Screenplay

George Gallo

Length

107 min.

Starring

Armin Mueller-Stahl, Trevor Morgan, Ray Liotta, Charles Durning, Samantha Mathis, Ron Perlman, Diana Scarwid, Julie Lott

MPAA Rating

R for language.

Review

Growing and developing as an artist is not an easy task. Through torment, joy and other emotions, the painter, the sculptor, the writer, and all others expand their canvas to heights that they might never have reached without adventure. Local Color explores the emergence of a young artist as he seeks the tutelage of a well-respected Russian painter.

John Talia (Trevor Morgan) loves to paint. He desires to explore the depths and recesses of his canvas, following a traditional landscape artist’s path. His father, John Talia Sr. (Ray Liotta) thinks his son isn’t manly enough and voices his concerns in many ways, including suggesting on a number of occasions that he might be gay. When young John is speaking with a local framemaker played by Charles Durning, he discovers that Russian artist Nicoli Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl) lives in the same town as he does, which encourages him to seek out this master for advice on his own art.

Not surprisingly, Nicoli is a curmudgeonly old man who dislikes much of the real world and hopes to sequester himself in his life away from the prying eyes of those who would recognize him. John wants nothing more than to train and learn under this master, but Nicoli doesn’t seem willing to take on a pupil. As can be expected from this style of film, he eventually relents and agrees to try and help John grow as a painter.

John joins Nicoli at his second home in the country where his expectations are not met as he mostly serves as fix-it man instead of painting apprentice. The position leaves him slowly frustrated forcing him eventually to confront Nicoli for the teaching he desires.

The film follows a pretty formulaic route to its conclusion, filled with massive amounts of sermonizing as the young artist germinates and eventually thrives in his desired career. Much of the film’s quality comes from the performances of Mueller-Stahl and Morgan. Mueller-Stahl, who earned his first and only, Oscar nomination for the film Shine, gets his second best role since then as the grouchy painter Seroff. While he was far superior in 2007’s Eastern Promises, he shows his true colors as an actor and thespic artist in this film.

What is often expected from this kind of film is that the master will learn something from his student, developing as a character alongside him. However, Mueller-Stahl, through his character, slowly reveals his personality to John through the course of the film, using certain elements to help him believe and understand who he is and where he must go. Nicoli’s personality doesn’t grow nearly as much as John’s does, which positions the film squarely in the protagonist’s hands instead of in the hands of an actor who, by all considerations, should be considered support.

Morgan’s performance is the central one here and he does quite well getting that across. His charm and talent slowly emerge as the film progresses, shifting from a young man who thinks he has most of the answers, to a young artist who knows he doesn’t have them all, but attempts to explore them nonetheless. Morgan hasn’t appeared in many leading roles, but his role here is one that, should it get some attention from film critics, might push him towards more varied and notable roles.

Local Color, aside from being fairly linear and predictable, relying overly much on narration to tell the story, has a few other issues, mostly on the performance side. Ray Liotta delivers a caricature of his past performances, creating a mean patriarch who spouts inappropriate negative comments at his son. It’s such a paper thin concept that Liotta overacts it easily, never scaling back and always seeming at odds with the more subdued nature of the story.

Ron Perlman, who may have done the narration those seems to have gotten no credit for it, plays the lisping art dealer who favors modern art over the more traditional landscape mediums. He is entirely at odds with Nicoli who prefers the older media and detests most tortured artist/avant-garde-styled creations. Perlman is a stereotype where one is not needed. The purpose of his lisp seems to suggest he is either a homosexual or, as is more likely the case considering the woman he brings as a date to Seroff’s place for dinner one evening, merely puts on the air in an attempt to appeal to the gay community that tends to support his gallery more frequently. Either way, it seems a rather unnecessary approach given that Perlman has a great deal of talent, which is sometimes wasted when diverted to the wrong parts.

It isn’t surprising that George Gallo, screenwriter of films like Bad Boys and Code Name: The Cleaner, would have a small problem creating a non-formulaic art film. What he does with the plot is so cloying that when there is no real emotional payoff at the end, you almost feel disappointed to have watched the film. However, there are enough kernels of goodness blended in and the performances of Morgan and Mueller-Stahl help elevate the film as a more pensive and understated picture.

And if you take away the rather pedestrian pacing, Local Color becomes a film that can easily lead to discussions of deeper and more esoteric subjects relating to artistic development and the exploration of art as an expressive medium even when the painting is a simple landscape.

Review Written

November 24, 2008