Film Review: "Velvet Buzzsaw" (2019).

"All art is dangerous" in Velvet Buzzsaw. This satirical supernatural horror film written and directed by Dan Gilroy. A feared critic, an icy gallery owner and an ambitious assistant snap up a recently deceased artist's stash of paintings - with dire consequences.

The genesis of the film came to Gilroy after having visited the Dia contemporary-art gallery in Beacon, New York in 2017. Hours later, he came up with a rough plot. Gilroy, who calls himself "a contemporary-art aficionado who doesn't collect", went down a rabbit hole of research about the contemporary art world, working with multiple advisors during the course of process of writing and filming. In June 2017, it was announced Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo had been cast in Gilroy's then untitled film, with him writing and directing the film, and Netflix would produce and distribute the film. Gilroy has written the characters of Rhodora Haze and Morf Vandewalt specifically for Russo and Gyllenhaal. Long before a single frame was shot, Gilroy stated that the film would have a The Player (1992) vibe. He took inspiration from Robert Altman's huge ensemble type of filmmaking. In January 2018, it was announced the title was Velvet Buzzsaw. By early March 2018, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen had rounded out the cast. Around the same time, principal photography began in Los Angeles, California.

The film stars Gyllenhaal, Russo, Collette, Ashton, Sturridge, Dyer, Diggs, Magnussen and Malkovich. The cast gave terrifically performances. Most of the characters are loathsome and insufferably pretentious. They are also monsters - fiends who prey upon artists and seek to profit off their art, or destroy it. The cast's performances are spot-on leeches, spewing forth pretentiousness like judgmental critics, but they never goes so far as to make their characters someone you don't recognise.

Restless, visually sleek, and powered by schlocky star performances from the cast, Velvet Buzzsaw offers dark, thought-provoking thrills. Gilroy demonstrates an uncommon assurance, not only in his audacious tonal shifts but in the stellar work he elicits from his cast and crew. The film kept me on the edge of my seat and senses. The film attacks the contemporary art scene and its global commercialization that create an insufferable class of pretentious critics and consumers. The movie is a bit soulless, but that's the point. The film is fully the sum of its parts, with winning central performances, a blackly comic screenplay and a handful of brilliant set pieces, it is worth your time. Tense, atmospheric, chilling and always engaging, added to by a tense soundtrack, the film is a special, often dark, film that strides over a minefield of morals. The film is tense and appalling, yet strangely funny, intriguing and engaging at the same time. Watch it. The film, on its surface, is a relatively straightforward supernatural horror, built around a slightly improbable but very powerful antagonist, a dead artist who seeks to punish those who seek to profit off of his and other artists' works.

Simon says Velvet Buzzsaw receives:

Also, see my review for Roman J. Israel, Esq.