Bob Ross, like Mr. Rogers, holds a fond place in the hearts of millions. Between 1983 and 1994, the frizzy-haired artist mesmerized audiences with his formulaic approach to landscape painting on his PBS television show, The Joy of Painting. Speaking softly as he created motel-ready canvases, Ross was more personality than talent, reassuring audiences that they, too, could be artists, and that there were no such things as mistakes, just “happy accidents.” The fingerprints of Ross’ legacy are all over the film “Paint,” even if the names and details have been changed, but one look at Owen Wilson’s blonde perm erases all doubt. This film, from writer/director Brit McAdams, is a warm-hearted tribute to the public television king of kitsch, and its craftsmanship and artistic merit are in line with what you might find on Bob Ross easel. It’s not fine art, but it’s…fine.
With his voice barely ever rising above a whisper, Wilson plays the role of the fictional Carl Nargle—a name seemingly chosen specifically to showcase Wilson’s nasal mumble. When he’s not cranking out canvases in front of the cameras, he’s cruising around Burlington, Vermont in his airbrushed conversion van where he beds the women who throw themselves at him. His romantic life is as undeveloped and poorly composed as his paintings, and both of these aspects of his life suffer from the sense of missed opportunities. Katherine (Michaela Watkins) is the love he lost who might still have feelings for him. Meanwhile, the local art museum has been needing a landscape painting of Mount Mansfield, so that’s the only thing that Carl paints anymore. Even though he has a public platform for his hobby on cable TV, he’s desperate to see his work validated by joining the collection of recognized masterpieces.
The hijinks associated with Carl’s attempts to satisfy these romantic and artistic yearnings comprise most of the plot. That would be plenty for a script that centered on a character of depth and complexity, but Carl Nargle possesses neither of those qualities. Instead, he’s presented as a one-note idiot-savant who has been stuck in a loop of stalled ambition and ossified fashion for decades. Wilson, true to form, plays him deadpan, but without any of the quiet pathos he’s injected into portrayals of similar outsider characters in better movies. His whispery delivery has its charm, but it also underlines how insubstantial Carl really is. With his aversion to technology and his fashion sense frozen in 1979, Carl inhabits a world that has long since moved on.
As a flashier rival (Ciara Renée) moves in on his professional territory, Carl withdraws from the small milieu he once commanded like a superstar. There are light touches of workplace humor and drama about the underworld of public television broadcasting, but nothing that goes much deeper than gags about tote bags and pledge drives. Does a movie about a kitsch artist need to be kitschy itself? Paint mostly answers that in the affirmative, presenting a soft-focus vision of a world where the stakes are low and emotions muted. A killer soundtrack of ’70s-era deep cuts suggests a richer world beyond the confines of Burlington, but Carl lacks the drive to break out of the rut he’s carved out for himself.
Despite all the Bob Ross signifiers embedded in Paint, it’s impossible to know what, if anything, corresponds to the actual life and soul of the guy whose image inspired it. The film hangs there, pleasant enough to look at without drawing you into any deeper contemplation of the world it depicts. Like a painting in a motel room, it’s a dash of inoffensive color in an empty space that you hope to swiftly vacate.
Photo courtesy of IFC Films
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