Art World Bares its Soul in Adam Goldberg’s Superlative ‘(Untitled)’

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – One of the best and most exciting surprises of the 2009 film year is a smaller, claustrophobic film starring Adam Goldberg and set in the art gallery world of New York City. “(Untitled)” is an honest, uncompromising character study.

Taking its name from the practice of inscribing artwork with no label at all, (Untitled) involves three people, two who are practicing artists and one who owns a small Soho art gallery. Adrian (Adam Goldberg) is a composer of atonal symphonies – think using buckets and chains for sounds instead of harmonics – and although recognized as a significant craftsman he still needs to supplement his living by providing piano atmosphere in a haughty bistro.

Adam Goldberg as Adrian in ‘(Untitled)’ Photo credit: Parker Film Company/Samuel Goldwyn Films

His brother Josh (Eion Bailey) is a “successful” artist, having found a niche market selling his works to decorate hotel lobbies and corporate hallways. He is the biggest income generator for Madeleine (a revelatory Marley Shelton), who owns a small but cutting edge gallery. Embarrassed that she has to rely on Josh’s commercial work to stay afloat, she coyly hides his work in the back when clients come to call.

When Madeleine sees Adrian perform one of his symphonies, she not only gets a commission for him but takes him on as a lover. When the three attitudes of the principal characters collide – Adrian’s outsider inclination, Josh’s desperate need for artistic credibility and Madeleine’s blind worship of the next edgy art happening – the very question of who decides what art can be is philosophically rendered.

Jonathan Parker’s direction, from a script co-written with Catherine DiNapoli, is a tightly woven potpourri of feeling regarding humankind’s notion of promoting and understanding their own artistic taste. The script is also highly quotable. Adrian assertion that harmony was created so capitalists could sell pianos is just one of the crazy, beautiful lines that are both thoughtful and hilarious.

The principal characters are right on the money. Goldberg is playing a variation on his reliable character, the twitchy intellectual whose very presence has psychological implications, but with more depth and complexity. Eion Bailey’s Josh is a perfect sibling foil. He is rich, he is apparently successful, but he knows deep down that Adrian is the artist with integrity. And Marley Shelton, both icy and scintillating as Madeleine, is pitch perfect. She is everything that is expected of an NYC art luminary, but both the script and her characterization reaches for something more.

Zack Orth as Porter, an Art Patron Wannabe and Marley Shelton as Madeleine in ‘(Untitled)’ Photo credit: Parker Film Company/Samuel Goldwyn Films

New York City is effectively used as a character, but not the NYC that is expected. This is the New York of dusty school performance halls, domestic white wine poured at a converted warehouse gallery and the unfamiliar bohemian streets that exist in a fantasy world of insular artists. It is the New York in Johathan Parker’s universe.

For a lower budgeted film, the art direction is substantial. There is feeling in all the locations, from Madeleine’s oh-so-arty loft apartment to the converted work spaces of a mod and crazy next big artist named Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones). Most compelling is the form- over-function living space of a art patron wannabe (he’d made his money in dot coms). It’s very absurdity, especially as he’s trying to impress a date, speaks volumes without having to say anything.

But the ultimate success in this film lies in the internal and external debate that occurs within the narrative about staying true to one’s passion for creation. Does, for example, Josh really think he has a vision, when he essentially makes copies of all his previous work because someone oohed and aahed at a hotel opening?

Is Adrian really satisfied that he is a true artiste, even though his symphonies are easily dismissed and trash-worthy (in a derision hilariously provided by a Russian soprano)?

And finally, is Madeleine nothing more than a hyperbolized version of the easily manipulated wannabes and commercial agents that she easily cashes in on? It is the genius of a fully realized production that allows such a thought process to flow.

After seeing this film, I thought about my grandmother and the artwork she chose to display in her working class home in West Virginia, paintings and sculptures of religious imagery patterned after her life of faith.

Who is anyone to question those soothing images to her, and moreover what outsider can question anyone’s interaction with the imagery they bring into their own lives? (Untitled) dares to take this challenge on and comes to theorize that the journey of this short life is truly an artistic work in progress.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com