Film Forum

When star Parisian auctioneer André (Alex Lutz) learns that a long-lost Egon Schiele painting has turned up in the home of a young worker in a small town, he pays a visit and verifies its authenticity... as well as its iniquitous wartime provenance. A race to navigate the thorny world of art buyers and dealers collides with a triangle of players including André’s plucky, mendacious intern, his savvy ex-wife / art appraiser (Léa Drucker), and the young man swept up by the talons of history who’s been housing the painting—before putting it up at a suspenseful auction. Bonitzer—screenwriter for André Téchiné, Jacques Rivette, Raúl Ruiz, Raoul Peck, and others—gamely skewers the absurdities of the art market while converging personal, historical, and moral questions with welcome optimism.

Presented with support from The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund, The Helen Frankenthaler Endowed Fund for Films on Art, and The Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Films, donated by Leon Constantiner and Family

2024     91 MINS.     FRANCE     IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES    MENEMSHA FILMS

Reviews

“Shrewd and diverting... [a] smart, digressive, agreeably sardonic drama set in the art world, which tracks what happens after a decades-lost painting by Egon Schiele resurfaces.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
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“A spry and byzantine moral comedy set in the trenches of the French art business... a thoughtful little tempest of a movie that repeatedly circles the questions asked by its first encounter: Where does art belong, who deserves to own it, and how much do we diminish its value by focusing so much on its cost?”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“CLEVER... a crafty French tale of art, money, and social class.”
- Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“A profound exploration of the complex mechanisms of the so-called ‘art world,’ its established hierarchies, and the grander apparatuses of post-consumerist cosmopolitanism, replete with occasional tongue-in-cheek sardonicism.”
– Ayeen Forootan, In Review Online

“A ripped-from-the-headlines ensemble drama set in the crosshairs of high art and high finance. A dexterous screenwriter, Bonitzer draws parallels between the cosmopolitan wheeler-dealer André and his shell-shocked client, all while building out a lively cast of characters…”
– Ben Kroll, Variety