The Next Big Thing

A typical starving artist (Eigeman) is unable to sell his paintings until a scam artist creates a mysterious identity for him and proves that one can find wealth and true love through fraud as his art becomes "The Next Big Thing". There is as little to praise and there is to fault in this easy-going B romcom now on cable. An okay time killer for couch potatoes. (C+)

Note - Farley Granger, 50's heart-throb, makes a rare appearance in this film.

Intelligently crafted with wry humor throughout. Almost like a New Yorker cartoon in its portrayal of upper class follies. Anyone who has seen Basquiat, which is NOT a fanciful rendition of actual events, will recognize that The Next Big Thing basically keeps it real. It is not a crass lampoon of the art world, as other reviews allege, but a finely detailed imagining of how one accident might lead to another to produce a breakout artist. It plays out as a visualization of a funny story one might hear in conversation, with unlikely twists and turns - the sort of facts that make a true story actually funny. Surely the lives of actual artists who've broken into the big time involve a twist and turn here and there, a crazy accident that seems funny in retrospect (but which would have seemed agonizing to live out in real life). Anyone wondering if this movie is worth watching deserves to hear resoundingly that it really is worthwhile. It deserves a higher IMDb rating, and only suffers a sub 6 rating because it is so intelligently made that average viewers don't appreciate its fine subtleties.

Gus has no luck selling his art, due to the fact that he has nothing to sell it with: he is neither homosexual nor crazy, he is not drug-addicted or troubled in any other way (besides being very unsuccessful as an artist). Good luck that there are thieves who turn into very gifted artist representatives, PIs who can fake identities and art critics who still recognize art when they see it. Really?? Besides my biggest question - what is the point of this story - I wonder why anyone would cast Chris Eigeman as a lead character??? He looks like my bookie and has the charisma of my shoe vendor next door. The movie reminds me to never ever watch movies made by NY intellectuals who cannot imagine any kind of normal world but always feel an urge to portray rich, intellectual or artistic people and their non-problems. Please refer to the just as non-appealing movie "Motherhood" (2009, starring Uma Thurman) to know what I mean.