‘Paint’ Review: Owen Wilson Draws A Portrait Of Artist Stuck In The Past In Mild Indie Comedy

Thank God for Owen Wilson. Without the star’s laconic, laid-back comedic approach to character, his new film Paint would be strictly a by-the-numbers comedy affair. Even with Wilson offering his all as Carl Nargle, a local Public Television star in Burlington, Vermont, whose time in the spotlight he has always held is fading quickly, Paint seems like a missed opportunity.

Fortunately writer-director Brit McAdams has Wilson to hold it together with a sterling, mostly female supporting cast delivering the goods as well. It’s not enough, though, in a largely witless indie enterprise shot in 20 days during the pandemic.

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Nargle is inspired by PBS star Bob Ross, with full-on mop of permed hair and signature pipe, who held forth with his modest show in which in made instant art by painting landscapes and inviting the television audience to paint along with him as he offered soft, Mister Rogers-style advice. But McAdams paints an entirely different backstory in this otherwise fictional telling of a small-town PBS star who has not known what it is like not to be a local celebrity. Living out of his colorful, well-equipped van and seemingly still existing in his past personal and professional glory, he now is threatened with the future and the reality of changing times when a new and younger star, Ambrosia (Ciara Renee), moves in on his turf and proves a snappier and more engaging personality, one who is perfect to take on the mantle Carl had set.

With station manager Tony (a fine Stephen Root) handing the bad news to Carl that the station must move on, an ex-wife Katherine (wonderful Michaela Watkins) complicating his emotions and life, and a much-younger girlfriend Jenna (Lucy Freyer) frustrated in their awkward relationship, these are not the best of times for the man who is watching his life and celebrity crumble right in front of his eyes. Even the station’s promise to let his work live on for viewers in reruns turns disastrous when it is revealed that all those hundreds of old episodes featured Carl smoking his pipe, a no-no in this day and age. The world, his world, has passed him by.

Wilson, with his low-key, deadpan delivery, makes this watchable, but you only wish the satirical bent McAdams seldom achieves was more fully realized. Seeing this film, I kept thinking of an early-’70s Norman Lear-directed comedy, Cold Turkey, that dealt with residents of a small town all trying to give up smoking. Lear kept his eye on the human condition throughout without trying to force laughs, all the while building a wry satire on American life. They came naturally. Here in Burlington, we witness a place seemingly immune to growing with modern times and changing tastes, but the edge just isn’t there, the comedy too often succumbing to contrivance. Carl’s personal life takes up too much of the plot when focusing just on a guy whose celebrity is fading, his signature hair a symbol of his unwillingness to shift gears but rather coast on better days in a world moving past him.

The fault certainly is not in our stars, but rather the script. Co-stars Wendi McLendon-Covey and Luisa Strus certainly have their moments too, but flashbacks to the younger Carl and Katherine don’t work at all, not least because Wilson and Watkins fail at being believably 20 years younger and the de-aging process clearly was not in the budget.

I really wanted to like the harmless but forgettable Paint a lot more than I did, but nevertheless it is always nice to see Owen Wilson, even in a less-than-memorable film.

Producers are Richard J. Bosner and Sam Maydew. IFC Films opens the film Friday in theaters.

Title: Paint
Studio: IFC Films
Release date: April 7, 2023
Writer-director: Brit McAdams
Cast: Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Luisa Strus, Stephen Root, Lucy Freyer
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 36 min

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