Daily Blague

The only movie showing reasonably close to home that I (a) haven't seen or (b) could conceive of seeing was Art School Confidential, so that's what I went to, and - you're not going to be surprised, because when am I going to slam a film? I am such a lousy reviewer of movies that I don't even consider these Friday Movie entries "reviews." I'm old enough to know which films to avoid, and generous enough - having enjoyed so many movies for almost sixty years, it's the least I can be - to find things to enjoy in all the others. My inner movie critic works very preliminarily: before I go. And, what's more, my friends and relations are so well tuned to the things that I like about movies that they're an infallible phalanx - i promise not to use that word within the next six months - upon whom I can rely with complete assurance. I know this because, every time that I've been tempted to second-guess them, I've had a bad time.

I know something about Daniel Clowes. He writes graphic novels. He wrote David Boring, which was, indeed, so boring that I couldn't read it. It seems to me that graphic novels ought to be full-color, incendiary explosives, flaming arrows aimed at social injustice. Instead, they're about nice-guy anomie. Oddly enough, I thought that, while Art School Confidential is an almost pitch-perfect transcription of the Clowes style into film - I say "almost" because it isn't shot in blue and white - it was super just the same. And I know why I liked it. Max Minghella is irresistible. He plays Jerome, an art student whose longing for Audrey, a fellow student but also a shapely "life" model and the daughter of a famous artist, equals Tristan's for Isolde. Happily, he doesn't have as much trouble being up-front about this. Even more happily, he still has a lot of trouble letting Audrey know that - you know, I sort of, could we maybe, you probably wouldn't be interested. Whether Mr Minghella is a Big Star or a Flash in the Pan we shall have to wait to see, but I strongly suspect that he's going to do great things. He's memorable in a tiny part in Syriana, a huge-cast movie in which his one scene is played opposite George Clooney. I was so into his passion for Audrey that I thought his breakdown into tears was way overdue when it finally came.

That Audrey should like Jerome back is one of countless graphic-novel outcomes that will doubtless confuse established critics who have not read any. If I enumerated the "graphic novel" aspect of Art School Confidential - its very light hold on real-world contingency; its indifference to scrupulous plot-pointing; its reliance on types, not so much as cartoons as as suggestions of completely different story lines that might be taken up by other equally interesting movies - and here I am thinking of the character of Candace, memorably played by Katherine Moenning; and its just-so explanations - you would begin to think that the movie is terrible. But it is not terrible. It's really pretty good. It is certainly interesting, and it helped me to understand the burgeoning form of the graphic novel, of which, in its innocent way, it's a critique.

But just go see it because Max is somebody you're going to love. He is at least the new Bud Cort.

I forgot to say that the movie's best laughs were not in the trailers. The scene that keeps coming back to me takes place at Thanksgiving, at Jerome's home, when Jerome's parents... but I can't say any more than that, except that when the wonderful scene is over, Jerome has to listen to a confused aunt who can't even remember his name advise him to paint animals on sneakers for pubescent girls.

I've got it! Max Minghella is the movie version of Malcolm Gladwell!