Dan Gilroys newest picture, and most importantly second collaboration with the fantastic Jake Gyllenhaal, "Velvet Buzzsaw" is every much as unsatisfying and confused as it appears to be shiny and unique.
The satirical pieces, which take extremely long to set up, never work with the upcoming horror events - and the scenes of terror never seem to fully work under the context of the satirical bits.
We're left with a movie that pretends to be clever, intellectual and satirical on art, but displays nothing but a lack of every aspect mentioned above. There are quite some parallels between this and Inarritus "Birdman" (2014), in which the movie is neither convincing nor impressing to justify the flashy and dazzling tone and sense of narrative. It misses substance, thought and precision to back up its ambition.
For the most part though, Gyllenhaal is great, as one would easily expect. And I can not fully degrade the supporting cast who don't seem to be doing anything terribly wrong.
It's just as if all the characters have no real purpose besides their bizarre looks and the way they speak. No character has a serious arc, which is sad in this type of movie where it could have easily be portrayed throughout a leitmotif and theme of art. Everything just flows and flows into nearly two hours of badly paced dialogue, horror scenes and stylish art.
I must admit that some of the paintings and visual art looked really nice. The cinematography, and the editing (which was also done by director Gilroy) is not bad too. There is actually one shot that I remembered liking quite a bit. We are thrown into a family watching TV, until the camera moves top to reveal they are actually mannequins in a studio.
The problem ultimately is that it's half style, no substance. The style does not tell its own story, neither do the characters.
The plot is never explained and essentially only exists by coincidence and chance.
"Velvet Buzzsaw" never feels forced, because it simply hasn't got any constitution for the premise. That's in a certain way even worse than feeling forced.
Netflix hit out another pretentious, unconvincing, flashy and "empty" movie, whose only saving graces are Jake Gyllenhaal and the editing.
4/10
