THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY review (7/10)

When I first heard of THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, fairly early in 2020, I was eager to see almost anything “new” that might be coming out, because of the pandemic shut-down. It didn’t become available for purchase until late in the year, if memory serves, but I bought it. And then, it sat on my shelf until early 2022. By the time I got it, there was more new content available. Shinier, flashier “new’ movies to watch. But I finally got around to it the other day, and I’m sure glad I did.

Claes Bang is James, an lecturer on art criticism in Milan who we soon see is filled with self-loathing at not being a great artist, or at least the curator of a major museum and an important person in the art world. It seems he was headed in that direction, but his own shady ethics tripped him up. Early in the film, he meets the intriguing Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki) an American on some kind of extended holiday from her small Minnesota town. The two strike up a fling and James invites Berenice to join him on his upcoming visit to the Lake Como home of the filthy rich and very renowned art collector Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger). James hopes he might be landing a gig writing about Cassidy’s collection, but no, he’s given the chance to interview Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland), the most reclusive famous artist in the world, an opportunity to start his downward career back upward again. All he must…