Local Color

Movie: Local Color

I saw it on: August 5, 2009

Cast: Trevor Morgan, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ray Liotta, Charles Durning, Ron Perlman

Genres:  Drama

Synopsis: Based on a real-life experience by a budding artist in 1974 - John (Trevor Morgan) is an extremely talented artist – still in high school - with no formal art training.  His father (Ray Liotta) is convinced his love of art makes him gay.  John learns that a world-famous Russian-German artist lives nearby. The artist is Nicol Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl). John manages to meet Nicol in the hopes that Nicol will be a mentor to him – or at least give him some pointers.  Unfortunately, Nicol is a total recluse.  Nicol is impressed with the knowledge John has about painting.  As John says, he has read all about techniques – but needs someone to show him how to actually DO it.  Unfortunately, Nicol wants nothing to do with John.

Through sheer persistence, John gets invited by Nicol to spend the summer in the county in Pennsylvania with him.  It starts out a little like The Karate Kid – Nicol basically uses John as a handyman to get his summer house fixed up.  To say that Nicol was an angry crotchety old man is to woefully understate the case.  Again, John’s persistence and enthusiasm eventually wears Nicol down and they both benefit from the relationship.

My Two cents:  To be honest, the previews from this movie did nothing to encourage me to see it.  What got me to see it was Armin Mueller-Strahl.  I had seen him on The West Wing as the Israeli Prime Minister, and more recently in “Eastern Promises”, “The International” and “Angels and Demons”.  His accent alone made the movie worth seeing for me.

I am glad I went.  This was one of the best movies I have seen this year.  The conflict between John and his father was great.  Charles Durning (another actor that I always love to see) had a great role.  The best part though, was to see John break down Nicol’s barriers and to ultimately spark a renewal of Nicol’s love of painting.

Having absolutely no artistic abilities of my own, I was fascinated by the discussions between the two on how to achieve various affects in a painting.

An interesting bit of casting was Ron Perlman (“Beauty and the Beast” and “Sons of Liberty”) doing a 180 degree switch from his normal role and playing a snooty art connoisseur.

Something I do not understand is why some movies have such limited releases.  This movie is listed in IMDB as having a limited release in September 2008.  I had never heard of it.  When I saw it, it was showing in only three theatres in the entire country – and apparently has not been shown since.  Granted, it does not take much for me to like a movie – but I really thought this was a great movie.  I walked out of the theatre full of enthusiasm for it (I almost went straight to an art museum).  I just don’t understand why it did not get more theater time.

Anyhow, this is definitely a gem worth seeing, especially if you are at all interested in painting – or if you just like feel-good movies.