Gorgeous, sumptuous, sensual, funny, tempestuous, Stanley Tucci’s FINAL PORTRAIT is a work of art and entertainment, a same sense marriage between cinematography and painting, a highlight of the movie going year.
In 1964, while on a short trip to Paris, the American writer and art-lover James Lord is asked by his friend, the world-renowned artist Alberto Giacometti, to sit for a portrait. The process, Giacometti assures Lord, will take only a few days. Flattered and intrigued, Lord agrees.
So begins not only the story of a touching and offbeat friendship, but, seen through the eyes of Lord, a uniquely revealing insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and, at times, downright chaos of the artistic process.
FINAL PORTRAIT is a bewitching portrait of a genius, and of a friendship between two men who are utterly different, yet increasingly bonded through a single, ever-evolving act of creativity. It is a film which shines a light on the artistic process itself, by turns exhilarating, exasperating and bewildering, questioning whether the gift of a great artist is a blessing or a curse.
In creating FINAL PORTRAIT, Tucci has two superb actors sitting, standing, speaking for him, creating their own “portraits” of the characters they are portraying.
Geoffrey Rush exhibits his characteristic chameleon quality in his picture perfect portrayal of Giacometti, shambolic, worn and dusty, with an accent parleyed through Swiss French, Parisian French, and percolated through English, with various exotic emphasis on expletives, especially the F bomb. Wayward, eccentric, self centred, Rush is genius in portraying perpetual dissatisfaction.
Armie Hammer is a contrasting comparison in this unlikely camaraderie – his James Lord is elegant, chic, articulate and well groomed, a verisimilitude to his character’s family name. His stillness and calm perfectly compliment and contrast the tumultuous disarray of Rush’s Giacometti.
The superbiosity of playing is further perpetrated by Tony Shalhoub as Diego, Giacometti’s brother and right hand man. Shalhoub’s portrayal is a beautifully sculptured exercise in simplicity and nuance.
The palette is further emboldened by the participation of Sylvie Testud and Clémence Poésy. Testud takes the role of Annette, Giacometti’s long suffering wife, and Poésy plays the prostitute who became Giacometti’s muse, obsession and lover.
Tucci’s incisive script sets the foundations for the innerscape of the characters proving a faultless ear for dialogue. His eye is equally flawless in his composition of shots and the external landscape in which he places his subjects. Again, the contrasts compliment the narrative and personify the perpetual dissatisfaction motif.
Production designer, James Merifield, has created an exquisite replica of Giacometti’s studio, exuding a sense of a Samuel Beckett set of elegant squalor, and cinematographer, Danny Cohen, has captured the essence and particulars of the space with his customary light fantastic.
Liza Bracey’s costume design is impeccable.
The painting that is the catalyst for FINAL PORTRAIT was sold in 1990 for over $20,000,000. The price of a ticket will cost you nothing like that, but viewing this fine film should leave you with a twenty million dollar feeling.