‘Velvet Buzzsaw’ made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, along with the film’s director – Dan Gilroy – and stars, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalia Dyer, and more. The film is a wicked, hilarious satire with palpable energy – but did it live up to the audience’s expectations after Gilroy’s and Gyllenhaal’s last pairing, the heart-racing and maniacal ‘Nightcrawler’? Here’s what you need to know about this film.
High-end art world horror
The term “velvet buzzsaw,” for those who don’t know, is slang for a rich person’s flatulence, and it’s this stuffy, hot air that writer-director Dan Gilroy derides so deliciously in his new film, the horror-comedy Velvet Buzzsaw (available to stream on Netflix this Friday). Having last mocked the vulture-like culture of tabloid journalism and consumption in his previous film, Nightcrawler, Gilroy returns to an arena of ridicule (and once again set in the beautiful but artificial city of LA) to satirize the self-important art world elites whose vanity and greed results in devaluing the meaning of art – if it doesn’t kill them first.
Killer paintings!
It’s business as usual in the art world – with vanity plagued art dealers, buyers, agents, and critics all “kiss-kiss”ing each other at the latest openings. That is, until the life’s work of an unknown artist is discovered, which shakes the art world for the mind-blowing reason that it actually has “substance” as flamboyant art critic Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal) remarks. Whether or not the paintings from the artist – Dease – should ever have seen the light of day or not (per the late artist’s intentions) means nothing to sales agent Josephina (Zawe Ashton) and her boss, Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo), who immediately look to sell and display the white-hot works. But as they, and the rest of the vociferous art world soon comes to find as each of the pieces are dealt and displayed, spiritual forces begin to haunt and lead each of the greedy superficial socialites to their demise in different gruesome ways.
A dream ensemble
Before long, it’s one death-by-art after another. One of the most deliciously fun parts of Velvet Buzzsaw is that, being an ensemble movie, we get so many different zany characters, all played by an incredible list of actors all portraying wonderful, over-the-top versions of snobby art world elites who meet a bitter end. There’s Rene Russo, who sinks her teeth into the part of Rhodora, former punk rocker turned commercial art owner. Russo mostly plays opposite newcomer Zawe Ashton, who holds her own as Josephina, the agent who discovers the Dease’s. Toni Colette is a fantastic wit and energy as the gossipy art world advisor Gretchen, and we are also treated to John Malkovich as an artist looking for re-inspiration. But if there’s one person who seems to have the most fun here, it is Jake Gyllenhaal, whose posturing as the flamboyant art critic Morf Vandewalt is a comically caricatured protagonist and a highlight throughout the film.
Painful paintings
Overall, Velvet Buzzsaw is less a breathtaking horror movie and more a perverse, comic watch, which allows Gilroy to have his fun in voicing the underlying thoughts of how art loses all meaning at the hands of elites, critics (ahem) and institutions that seek to focus on financial or social opportunity within its aesthetic value. While this also means that we don’t have the same bone-chilling uneasiness of a Nightcrawler, we get something that we can laugh at, and then think about long after.
‘Velvet Buzzsaw’ will be available to stream on Netflix starting Friday.
