(Untitled)

Directed by Jonathan Parker

At The Angelica

Runtime: 96 minutes

There’s something unsettling about a comedy set in the Downtown art world that makes you side with the defender of insane art. But whether by design or casting, that’s exactly what happens in the hilarious (Untitled) when Marley Shelton’s gallery owner starts explaining the genius behind an artist’s show consisting of thumbtacks and Post-It notes.

Whether the object itself is Art or whether how we perceive the object is what makes it art is the very valid question running throughout the film, written by Jonathan Parker and Catherine di Napoli. Just not for atonal composer Adrian (Adam Goldberg), who is bitterly convinced that his own compositions—which rely on breaking glass and kicking buckets—are ahead of their time, while the art that Madeleine (Shelton) exhibits is merely so much masturbatory output. That doesn’t stop them from having an affair, of course, even though Adrian’s commercially successful artist brother Josh (Eion Bailey) has a thing for Madeleine himself. Madeleine is happy to sell Josh’s vapid art to corporate clients to keep her gallery afloat, but she draws the line at giving him a gallery show or sleeping with him.

The oddest thing about (Untitled) isn’t just how we find ourselves siding with Madeleine in her stubborn refusal to treat Josh like a “real” artist, but how thrilling her eventual, bitterly funny victory over the two brothers is. By all rights, the facile painter and the bitter composer, both of whom work hard at being misunderstood, should capture our loyalty. But there’s something about Shelton as Madeleine that tilts the movie in her favor. Maybe it’s her deadpan delivery, or the series of hilariously noisy outfits she wears, but Madeleine seems like the sanest person in this absurd world.

Taxidermy mixed with pearls shouldn’t be art, but Adrian’s refusal to compare what he does with what Madeleine’s artists do is both infuriating and telling. Of course he doesn’t want to compare himself with these puffed-up artists; Adrian is too angry at a world he keeps at arm’s length to consider that he’s just as much of a buffoon as the more successful and equally confusing artists in the world. And though Goldberg’s neurotic tics are charming (a performance he has mastered over the years), Adrian doesn’t really believe in anything other than his desire to confound the world. Shelton, at least, imbues Madeleine with an unshakable, passionate belief in contemporary art. And in the end, who doesn’t want to side with the person who deeply cares about something, anything, rather than the self-defeating nihilist who rejoices in chaos?