Owen Wilson stars in the film “Paint.”
Courtesy IFC Films/TNS
A past-present temporal mashup, “Paint” from first-time feature writer-director Brit McAdams is set in a world that has stood still, or at least been slow to catch up to our present day. The film, which is set in Vermont and is said to be a sendup of pioneering TV artist Bob Ross, is a deadpan, perhaps too deadpan and not-very-funny comedy that paints a portrait (excuse me, it’s contagious) of Carl Nargle (Owen Wilson), a bearded, ‘fro-sporting, pipe-smoking star of the local Burlington, Vermont, PBS station. Carl’s show is entitled “Paint,” and on it he, OK, paints pictures, all of them of Vermont’s Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the state.
Carl is a superstar to legions of oldsters and barflies enraptured by his every word (and picture). This includes his coworkers, who are mostly women, as well as the station manager Tony (Stephen Root), who cannot ingratiate himself with Carl enough and proudly displays one of Carl’s paintings on his office wall. When he isn’t on live television, Carl tools around in his “Van-tastic” orange Chevy van, which is equipped with “Paintr” vanity plates, a Citizens Band radio and a “custom-made” sofa bed.
Carl, who lives in a barn lined with his paintings, has his choice of the women at the station, including his ex Katherine (Michaela Watkins). Ambrosia (a charismatic Ciara Renee), a young painter inspired by Carl “as a child,” becomes the station’s new star and the latest subject of a cushy feature story in the Vermont daily the Burlington Bonnet. Carl is upset, and not even a suggestive fondue dinner at the local eatery Cheesepot with Jenna is going to cheer him up.
Carl is partial to vintage leather jackets and embroidered shirts. Just when you are wondering when this story is set, Jenna calls an Uber to take her home. What’s that? Carl asks. Half the dialogue in “Paint” is weirdly or openly suggestive (“I’m hot as a hot pocket”). Half of it makes me gag.
Carl is obsessed with getting a painting into the not-very-distinguished Burlington Museum of Art. The Museum’s director (Michael Pemberton) seriously suggests Carl donate his work to Motel 6. Like many of the film’s narrative threads, this one is OK, but not as funny as it might have been.
A lot of the laughs are derived from inappropriate timing or speech. On the soundtrack, we hear such old-time standards as John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” (“You fill up my senses…,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” and Jerry Reed’s “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.” In other words, even the music is not funny.
Wilson has played this sort of not-quite-living-in-the-real-world type before in “Zoolander 2,” “Drillbit Taylor” and “You, Me and Dupree.” He’s fine as Nargle, but certainly not juicy, and I have always liked him better in more earthbound roles.
‘PAINT’
Rating: 2 stars (out of 4)
Rated: PG-13 (for sexual/suggestive material, drug use and smoking)
Running time: 1:36
How to watch: Now in theaters
