Alberto Giacometti, the Final Portrait

If you enjoy watching paint dry this is your film. Imagine an artist who is unable to finish a painting without needing to start again…and again. That is the basic premise of Final Portrait (2017). It's a bio-pic that looks into the idiosyncratic mind of renown Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush) in a story so lacking in forward narrative that many will be left wondering why they watched it at all.

Based on real events, Final Portrait is an adaptation of a memoir by American writer James Lord (Armie Hammer) who is flattered when asked to pose for a portrait by Giacometti. Believing it may be a single session, it turns out to take almost three weeks of daily sittings. The artist lives amidst chaotic mess with a long-suffering wife who tolerates his obsession with a prostitute girlfriend. He hates banks; prefers to hide cash under his studio rubble; has few social filters; and is liked by all despite a tendency insult others. The portrait sessions are constantly interrupted by long walks, drinks at nearby bars, and frequent outbursts due to chronic perfectionism that ensures his works are never finished. He is unable to walk past his clay sculptures without making a change and some are so altered that they are reduced to stick figures. Lord's amused and bewildered fascination with the life of a creative genius keeps him cancelling his return flight to America just to see his final portrait.

The nineteen-day timeframe feels like the same event repeated nineteen times (mercifully, with some time compressions). Along the way, we watch the deeply etched face of the cantankerous Giacometti as he grimaces in self-rebuke, lusts after his girlfriend, and gazes deeply into the gaze of James Lord to search not for the look but the inner soul of another human being. If you can forgive Geoffrey Rush's Aussie-Swiss accent, there is much to admire in his characterisation of an angst-ridden artist. But it is also wearingly repetitive. Lord is the master's foil as the suited slick- back straight guy. Initially adrift in the world of an erratic painter, he is conservative and upright yet his vanity is drawn like a moth to the flame of genius, eager to understand Giacometti's creativity. While both play their part brilliantly, it is Geoffrey Rush who dominates the screen. The studio set is cluttered and claustrophobic, like the artist's mind, and the cinematography employs the shallow depth-of-field effect to dwell on detail, allowing sharply focused faces to peer between blurred works of art as if to say these are but points in time that will never find their final form.

There are clever ironies in watching a painter who studies his subject, while the subject studies the painter. It's a three-way mirror between audience, Rush and Lord. But such existential twists are not enough to elevate this film to a level of great meaning. Viewers enthralled by this field of art might enjoy the story but most others may struggle. It's like a moment in time that lasts nineteen weeks, then compressed into ninety minutes. There is little to look forward to as the ending has no more meaning than the beginning but is far more welcomed.

I understand that there are people that may have problems with this movie. It can be a frustrating movie to watch. But it can also be, funny, exasperating and sad. The acting is great. I don't place a judgement on the artist's behavior. He was as he was. This movie is about the artistic process, and the collaboration in that process. It can be tedious, chaotic and at times mesmerizing. It reminded me of a few of my friends who are artists. They truly do see the world in a different way, and at times you just have to go with it.

I wanted to see this movie because I like Geoffrey Rush and Tony Shalhoub. I'd never seen a movie directed by Stanley Tucci, either, so that interested me. I took myself to see this, and expected a semi-art house flick. This was... OK, in my opinion. Here's why:

The Good: The acting is good, which means the directing was good. Well acted and directed in my opinion.

The Bad: There's a bit more than the good, unfortunately. The scenes get a little repetitive after a while, there's a dark color tone to the film that takes a little while to get used to, and I don't feel like you really have a reason to care about the characters. You get left in the dark, just kind of wondering what's taking so long for this man to finish the portrait. He's all over the place. Sometimes studying his drawing, sometimes carousing his mistress, sometimes cursing up a storm. It's an odd situation, watching this film. I didn't dislike it, as some of the other patrons in my theater did, but I don't see a reason to revisit it. So... I'll give it 5/10.

Loved the film, it is definitely not for everyone, as an art student it was rather interesting to see an artists process of making a painting. The film itself is rather small, it is centred around one particular event. The acting is great. I would recommend it to artists and people who are interested in creative process of making an artwork.

Although in the '60's I knew famous artists could live in hovels, I never imagined the way Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), the famous sculptor/painter, lived. In Final Portrait, his grimy Parisian first-floor apartment is strewn with famous spindly-limbed sculptures amid broken pottery and glass with an easel on which he paints a portrait of his friend, James Lord (Armie Hammer).

I am usually critical of stories about painters because these biopics rarely give insight into the artistic process (Girl with a Pearl Earring, Frida, and Pollock among my favorites, but disappointing that way), concentrating rather on the dynamic personal life. However, Final Portrait lets us sit with his subject and ingest the cranky chaos that has already bred world-wide fame.

While his wife Annette Arm (Sylvie Testud), is in attendance, the artist carries on at length with a delightful prostitute, Caroline (Clemence Poesy), goes to dives, disrespects money, chain smokes, and generally acts like the Bohemian he is.

Such seems the stereotype, but writer/director Stanley Tucci deftly adapts Lord's book, A Giacometti Portrait, to let us experience the disarray of the process that takes weeks. The artist is disappointed multiple times, starts over, yet really believes no portrait is ever finished.

Alberto Giacometti keeps us hoping that another day of Lord's sitting will produce a result, yet another day comes and goes into weeks. Lord, a writer, is remarkably patient as we all know genius will not be hurried. When it's over, however, you can bet on its being world-class.

Rush is charming as the disheveled genius, while Hammer is handsome, as always, and subdued in the artist's presence. I was not bored for a second because I felt like a visitor witnessing the workings of chaotic brilliance, a true friendship, and the essence of Parisian artistic life.

Sit back and enjoy an artist at work. It may seem slow, but it's not.