'(Untitled)' review

Adam Goldberg and Marley Shelton (Credit: Parker Film Company/Samuel Goldwyn)

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Commercial potential holds no appeal for Adrian (Adam Goldberg, pretentious and unlikable), a composer whose music is deliberately outrageous and frequently includes someone kicking a bucket. When he's embraced—professionally and personally—by a gallery owner (Marley Shelton) who seems drawn to anything unconventional, Adrian must consider—from his brother's (Eion Bailey) repetitive paintings to an artist who sticks a tack into a wall and calls it meaningful—what is art and why.

The buzz: Few things are more subjective than art, and it would be great if director/co-writer Jonathan Parker could explore why one person's perceived genius is another's total hogwash. (And if art can have value as an idea rather than anything tangible.) Of course, the film should acknowledge that there's plenty of work out there that isn't brilliant or worthless but falls somewhere in the middle.

The verdict: An interactive film with mind games more intriguing than its bitter tone, "(Untitled)" positions art as a house of mirrors in which personal bias impacts the way everything is digested—while so-called challenging works captivate some and turn off others. Parker, unfortunately, offers very little in terms of interesting relationships between people and turns eccentrics into such cartoons that the film neglects an open-ended debate for its own frustrated critique. (Blunt statements, like someone saying art looks worse when its value goes down, seem less like analysis than specific complaints about people.) The film, like some of these pieces, may make you feel unsure if you like it, respect it or hate it, and there's something to be said for that.

Did you know? An offbeat artist (Vinnie Jones) claims to reinvent himself so often that he's a different person than he was a minute ago. I was going to make a sarcastic comment about that, but by this point in this sentence I no longer feel like it.

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