A movie was released to Netflix recently titled Velvet Buzzsaw. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. I didn't know what the film was until I started seeing reviews of it on Facebook. I saw it was on Netflix and I saw that Jake Gyllenhaal was in the cast, so I decided to watch it. I didn't know anything about it, I hadn't even seen a trailer, so I went into Velvet Buzzsaw not knowing what to expect. What I was met with was an overall pretty decent movie. It was written and directed by Dan Gilroy, and the cast consists of Jake Gyllenhall, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich, among others. It was released on February 1st of 2019 to some relatively mixed reception. As of the day this review was published, it currently has a 5.9 on IMDb, a 61 on Metacritic, and a 66 on RottenTomatoes. I think I have similar thoughts, as well. Let me explain. Spoiler warning.
The first thing I'd like to talk about, since I feel like it's one of the high points of the film, is the cinematography. This movie is shot and framed exceptionally well. There are a lot of well-shot one-takes that do a great job of establishing spooky ambience, or showing what a character is thinking without having to say it. There's a really cool shot in which the camera travels into a glass of wine, goes through the color and the glass, and comes out into another part of the scene. I really enjoyed that trick, even though it ultimately didn't add much to the story. There's a Brady Bunch-esque shot showing multiple people looking at multiple pieces of art, it has the same effect as the wine trick. Looks cool, but doesn't do much other than that. There's a good use of close-ups, a good use of wide shots, a couple memorable (what I presume are) Steadicam moments. When the weird stuff starts happening, the camera presents it very well. I have no complaints in the camera department. On top of that, the dialogue was pretty okay. The lines that these characters had to say felt natural. When the art critics are talking about art, it's very intelligent. It makes you believe that these are prolific critics that know what they're talking about, especially with Jake Gyllenhaal's character.
Which brings me to the other high point I found in this film: The acting. There's a great cast, and they all give very good performances. If you can make it past how awful some of these names are (I'll get to that in a minute), you'll find some solid acting in this movie. Jake Gyllenhaal absolutely kills it. He plays an intelligent, egotistical art critic, and he spends most of the movie as exactly that. Snarky, yet smart. He has a few moments where he genuinely seems like a decent person, but, most of the time, it's immediately followed by his inner critic taking over. Jake plays it very well. John Malkovich isn't in the film for very long, but he does a good job when he's on-screen. His way of pronouncing words can sometimes be a little off, but it doesn't detract from his performance because that's just how he is. One actor in particular I'd like to shout out is Natalia Dyer, who plays Coco. She does a great job in this film. She reacts to the creepy things brilliantly, and she feels like a fully rounded character (more so than most of the others). I loved Coco, and I wish she had more screentime. I'll also give the same props to Toni Collette for her incredible performance as Gretchen. Toni made a name for herself, first in 2006 with Little Miss Sunshine, and again last year with Hereditary. She once again gives a great performance here, easily one of the best out of the whole cast. We already know that Gyllenhaal and Malkovich are great actors, and the people I didn't recognize surprised me with how good they did.
But, sadly, if you look past the acting and the directing, you won't find much else to enjoy in this movie. The story, which is arguably supposed to be the strongest point in any narrative, wasn't very well-woven in the case of this film. It's intriguing in concept, but underwhelming in execution. The story revolves around art made by a recently deceased man named Ventril Dease that is supposedly cursed. Some of the people involved with the selling or the painting of these art pieces start dying off in mysterious and admittedly brutal ways. There's a genuinly intense sense of mystery surrounding it. At any moment, someone could be horribly murdered by this art spirit. This begins to drive Gyllenhaal crazy over the course of the film, and he tries to look for the reason as to why this is happening. I like that idea. My problem with it is that the movie feels incomplete. The third act happens, almost all the people involved with Dease's art get killed off, and then the movie just kinda stops. The credits start rolling, Malkovich starts dancing on the beach while drawing something in the sand, and nothing happens. No resolution, no explanation, nothing at all. It makes the deaths feel like they meant nothing. You could argue that the lack of a reason for it could add to the scare factor, cause it implies that it could happen to anyone without warning, and I can agree with that to an extent. My problem with it arises when you take into consideration the fact that Jake spends most of the film after it really starts to get going trying to figure out why it's happening. It's just disappointing. I was thinking that it would be revealed that Malkovich was Dease all along, but it wasn't.
Also, even if the story were more well-crafted, I couldn't take it seriously at all when you factor in that the main character's name is Morf. Morf Vandewalt. Who names their child Morf? There were some very good scenes involving Jake Gyllenhaal. They're well-acted, well-shot, well-paced, but then one of the other characters says "Hey, Morf" and it just ruins the mood. And then there's "Jon Dondon" and "Rhodora Haze". At least Haze gets a pass cause she used to be in a rock band, it's probably just her stage name. But what's your excuse, Mr. Dondon? One "Don" wasn't enough? You had to double it up? There's no way that Gyllenhaal looked at this movie's script, saw what his character's name was, and said "This is fine". Watching John Malkovich attempt to summon a demon while the end credits rolled was probably the funniest thing I've seen this year. There's also a scene where Malkovich shoots hoops for five seconds. He scores three goals, and then the scene ends and it's never brought up again. There are other weird scenes like that, but I don't wanna list them all. It feels like the movie can't make up its mind as to whether or not it wants to take itself seriously. I know I certainly can't. That type of flow is a big point against the film.
To end this on a high note, there is a lot of creativity to behold with this film. The visual effects, both CG and (what I'm assuming is) practical, are very cool. The death scenes are very well-handled and are definitely where the visuals are at their best. Gretchen dies from having her arm torn off by an art exhibit called Sphere, and she bleeds out. It's gross, it's brutal, it's awesome. Another death sees Josephina becoming one with a piece of artwork, which results in a strangely beautiful shot of her body looking like it was drawn into a piece of graffiti on a wall. It's a very cool scene, especially when we see the colors climbing up her skin and clothes. And then there's when Rhodora gets a hole drilled in the back of her neck by a tattoo of her band's logo (which, by the way, it one of the only ways that the events of the film tied into the title). Not all of the deaths are exciting however. One guy gets hung from the neck by his tie, and it's mostly just uncomfortable. Even the main character, Morf himself, ends up dying at the hands of an art piece he gave a negative review to earlier in the film. But it's nothing exciting or fitting. He just gets his neck snapped off-screen by a robot. The robot has a cool design, I'll give it that, but it didn't feel like a great way for the main character to die.
Speaking as someone that didn't know this movie existed until about four hours ago as of when this sentence was written, I can easily understand the mixed reception that Velvet Buzzsaw got. On one hand, it's an artsy and creative movie with a good cast and a great director at the helm. On the other hand, it's one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, with a weak story, no ending at all, and some of the worst character names I've ever heard. It feels like a Final Destination remake at times, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just felt like it was underwhelming. I'm gonna give it a 6/10. It's average, it's passable. I'm glad I took the time to watch it, I just wish it had been a little better. If you have a Netflix account, and you have two hours to kill, and you don't care that I just spoiled literally every plot point, I'd recommend giving Velvet Buzzsaw a chance. You might just have a good time with it.
