Boogie-woogie (2009)

Directed by: Duncan Ward | 94 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Gillian Anderson, Alan Cumming, Heather Graham, Danny Huston, Jack Huston, Christopher Lee, Joanna Lumley, Simon McBurney, Meredith Ostrom, Charlotte Rampling, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Jaime Winstone, Alfie Allen, Gemma Atkinson, Silas Carson, Sidney Cole, Sergio Corvino, Michael Culkin, Joséphine de La Baume, Alma Eno, Michael Estorick, Rosie Fellner, Stephen Greif, Maria Papas, Jenny Runacre, Ebe Sievwright, Jan Uddin

What is art? A question you can debate for days without arriving at a satisfactory answer. Fortunately, ‘Boogie Woogie’ does not choose that direction. The feature film debut by director Duncan Ward, based on the book of the same name by New York gallery owner Danny Moynihan, is more about dealing with art than the question of when something can be labeled as art. The story is intended to be a satire on the elite art scene – the world of expensive artworks, cheating gallery owners, unreliable artists and art buyers and so on.

While the book is set in New York, in the film London is the backdrop where gallery owner and art dealer Art Spindle (Danny Huston) and collector Bob Maclestone (Stellan Skarsgård) live. The common thread and title giver are their attempts to buy a work of art (devised for the story) from the Boogie Woogie series by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian from his very elderly owner Alfred Rhinegold (an amiable Christopher Lee). Mrs. Rhinegold (Joanna Lumley) wants to sell the work to make up for the dire financial situation. But the gentleman does not want to part with the painting at all because of its emotional value (Mondriaan gave it to him himself).

For the rest, the story consists of scheming, adultery and other deceptions, some loose comments about the world of expensive art (whether or not intended as criticism) and a horde of hopeless characters. However, there is one storyline that comes into the picture – about the lesbian artist Elaine (Jaime Winston) who films her sexual escapades for an ego document as a work of art. While such a subject lends itself extremely well to criticism of the art world (if only from an ethical perspective), ‘Boogie Woogie’ mainly takes it as a given and seems to serve rather to show bare breasts more often.

It’s a writing on the wall. A good satire – what ‘Boogie Woogie’ claims to be after all – is not only witty, but also provides substantive criticism. Duncan Ward’s film lacks both humor and commitment and rather becomes a bland soap opera, due to all the intersecting sexual relationships. That doesn’t take away from the fact that there are quite a few nice finds among them. It’s especially fun with Gillian Anderson, who really indulges in her role of Jean Maclestone (Bob’s wife), who is more often in bed with an artist than with her own husband. (Which, by the way, does it in turn with… and so on.)

Have you learned a lot about the workings of the art world in the meantime? New. Would you like to learn more about art history? Hardly any effort has been made to incorporate recognizable and well-known works of art in the film (for which the high-profile artist and collector Damien Hirst was consulted). Is it still an entertaining movie? That depends on your taste. If a sharper focus had been chosen, perhaps even with fewer characters, the film would have been a lot easier to digest. Too bad about the excellent cast, but this ‘Boogie Woogie’ will not fetch very much at an auction.