The Portrait

Someone wrote this during the writer strike, and the screenplay should have stayed in the shadows. There is a unique twist on a trope, but this screenplay has serious first-draft vibes. Art is very subjective, but when you art is objectively boring then you have a big problem.

This film is 120 minute long. The writer strike drew a clear line between writers and producers.

What you see with this film is a beautiful script ruined by producer opinions.

The end result is a drawn out, boring, confusing, recycled trope.

This script could have been something special, but the wrong people got involved. Or the good people were pushed aside. Or professionality was sacrificed.

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I don't believe this film was the intended goal.

Ryan Kwanten movies can be hit or miss, this one was a definite miss for me. In a nutshell, a married couple moves into a house and encounters a haunted painting. The majority of the movie is the wife dealing with trying to determine whether the painting is possessing her husband or she's just losing her mind.

All things considered, the movie offered nothing original regarding its premise and although the acting was solid, it couldn't make up for a lackluster script for a paint-by-numbers film.

I wouldn't recommend this one, not even as a way to kill time. Better to just watch paint dry.

-- -- --

Gets very creepy and weird. Lead is Amazing.

Was expecting a horror, it's more of a mess with your head type thriller which I like. Wasn't sure where it was going, its a slow burn start, but interesting. When it gets into it I was drawn in. Picture really freaked me out! Wasn't sure if it was moving of not, think it was but not too heavy on the effects. Last third in the house terrifying - excellent acting.

Locations very cool. Nice seeing Virgina Madsen pop up as well. Don't want to gibe it away, but a nice twist.... didn't see it coming.

Short movie, but maybe doesn't want to be longer, nice idea, good twists and turns and keeps you guessing.

The movie is 1 hr 26 mins. The First one hour is all about mystery of portrait & everything. If you want to sit through that slow burn mystery then go for it. But thats all it has. The movie makes protagonist's husband an interesting character but it never expands upon that. Instead we're seeing the female lead completely depressed throughout the movie. Theres ZERO horror in this movie. The Female lead ends the whole thing on her own & wont let the story reach anywhere. She ends it with a boring conclusion. And then theres that stupid sequel bait ending like all horror movies. Sigh. GARBAGE!!!

The first and second acts of The Portrait had me fairly hooked. It's a slow-burn psychological drama/thriller centered around a supposedly haunted painting. Though the writing goes through the motions, at least director Simon Ross worked out the atmospherics quite nicely. The protagonist (played by Natalia Cordova-Buckley) isn't given enough layers for us to care, but the actress (especially her grief-stricken face) gives more to the character than the writing. The film mostly shuffles between supernatural horror and psychological thriller but doesn't firmly place its foot on either. As a result, we get moderately enjoyable scares, an interesting backstory regarding the person in the portrait, and how it may or may not be connected to present events.

However, the last act was completely lost on me. It works from a visual standpoint, but when perceived from the writing and performative fronts, it's a letdown. For this to have worked from a psychological angle, I think we needed more scenes of the couple in their past (in order to connect with their present better), as well as more light shed on the 1937 backstory. Here, it's all told in a rushed fashion, with a conclusion that doesn't serve this story right. There's also a closing shot (twist?) that only waters the entire viewing experience down further.. almost as if the story we just watched never really mattered in the first place.