Art intelligence

Writer-Director Stanley Tucci asks the question “When is an artwork finished?” with Final Portrait, an acting workshop for Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer.

The film is based upon the memoir A Giacometti Portrait by James Lord, an American author who sat for a portrait by famed artist Alberto Giacometti shortly before the artist died in 1966.

Lord is played by Hammer, hot off his acclaimed performance in Call Me By Your Name, with Rush embodying the craggy, difficult, just-a-little-bit-crazy Giacometti. Much of the movie is simply these two fine actors bantering back and forth as Rush fiddles with painting paraphernalia and Hammer keeps still in a chair.

Does that sound boring? If you are not into the idea of watching an artist neurotically working through his painting process, then, yes, you will find this boring, and you should probably stay away. I found myself taken by the pic, but not completely. I admit to getting a little restless with it at times.

What makes it work in the end is that Rush and Hammer work so well, at times, off of one another. Hammer does good work as a Manhattanite in Paris swept away by the notion of having his likeness put on canvas, but unaware of the semi-ordeal he’s getting himself into. Giacometti woos Lord by telling him the whole thing should take a couple of hours, and it winds up taking weeks. Needless to say, patience is tested.

Rush’s Giacometti is a bit of a mess, openly carrying on with a local prostitute (Clemence Poesy), while his wife, Annette (Sylvie Testud), and brother, Diego (longtime Tucci collaborator Tony Shalhoub), try to keep him under control. His artistic genius is matched by a totally scattershot way of conducting business, life and artistic endeavors. His process lacks a certain organization and sense of purpose.

He seems like a nut, and yet, anybody who has tried to do a serious painting, sculpture or drawing can possibly relate to Giacometti’s lament that a true work of art is never really finished. I love to draw, but I have a hard time finishing my projects. Watching this film, I recalled an 11th grade art class where I constantly argued with my instructor about putting time limits on works of art. I could never get my assignments done in time, and I knew I had spent more time on them than did friends in the class.

I raged against my teacher, calling her standards unfair and completely against the notion of what art is. “Should a young man be downgraded for his art because he did not meet a proper deadline?” I asked passionately, a similar query to the one posed by Giacometti in this film.

Mysteriously, I got shitty grades.

OK, back on point. The film convincingly shows the struggles of an artist whose art doesn’t come easily to him. Rush hilariously interrupts multiple painting sessions by exclaiming “Oh Fuck-uh!” and slathering paint all over his canvas for the purpose of Giacometti starting the whole thing over.

The film comes up with a way to end the portrait session that, while kind of cute, feels a little too tidy and at odds with the majority of the movie’s running time. That said, I guess the movie couldn’t go on for weeks and weeks. That would be brutal.

While we’ve come to know Tucci for his character actor performances in films such as The Hunger Games and The Devil Wears Prada, he made quite a splash back in 1996 with his directorial debut, Big Night.

His directorial efforts since then—The Impostors, Blind Date, Joe Gould’s Secret—weren’t bad, but never really delivered on the promise of Big Night. Final Portrait is easily his best directorial effort since 1996, hinting that Tucci might yet have another big one in him. Final Portrait is not that big one, but it’s a good one.