Art School Confidential (Movie Review)

When I first saw a trailer for Art School Confidential (2006) — about a month or so before it was released in the theatres — I thought about adding an entry to my blog just talking about how excited I was to see it. It looked like a brilliant dark comedy that playfully poked fun of art-school types, but then the early reviews were so poor, I decided it wasn't worth the $9.25 to rush to the theatre. So I waited for the DVD.

And as much as I hate to agree with the critical vox populi, they were certainly on to something. But their criticism was so harsh, I almost felt sorry for this film — not to mention, the cast. So I was a wee bit more forgiving than were my predecessors. In short: I didn't hate this film. Sure, it wasn't anywhere near as good as my initial hope... but it wasn't entirely without merit.

Art School is another one of those quasi-independant films with a few big name actors (e.g. John Malkovich) that has an OK story line, but is otherwise missing that certain something at its core. Not to mention, it's a little more "dark" than I had expected... and with a little less comedy. It certainly wanted me to take it more seriously than I had any intentions of doing.

In short: it's a movie about an art school freshman who's quite gifted when it comes to accurately portraying what he sees, but who otherwise has no discernable style (or so his classmates say). His battle, then, is to either prove that his art is better than everyone else's more abstract paintings... or change his style.

FINAL GRADE: C