The Burnt Orange Heresy: Nothing but ash

The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) • View trailer 

1.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity, sexual content, drug use and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.25.20 

Deliver us from filmmakers who cherish attitude and atmosphere over plot logic and credible characters.

 

James (Claes Bang, left) and Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki) are initially awed to be in
the presence of renowned art power-broker Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger), but they
become more wary when their host explains what he wants from them.

Director Giuseppe Capotondi’s The Burnt Orange Heresy — available via Amazon and other streaming services — drowns beneath pretentious monologues and arch behavior. It’s a confined four-hander: a tedious stage play with delusions of big-screen glory. Scripter Scott B. Smith makes absolute hash of celebrated crime writer Charles Willeford’s 1971 novel, pitting three condescending men — each an insufferable aristocratic sophisticate — against a lone woman who may as well have the word “victim” tattooed on her forehead.

 

Indeed, it’s painful to watch an actress of Elizabeth Debicki’s talent play such a relentlessly stupid and blindly reckless character.

 

If Capotondi wanted to emulate the gritty, neo-noir ambiance of Willeford’s prose — 1984’s Miami Blues remains a masterpiece of hard-boiled crime fiction — the director missed by a mile.

 

Danish actor Claes Bang (no relation, I assure you) rapidly becomes tedious as arrogant art critic James Figueras: fallen from his profession’s grace, and reduced to lecturing witless tourists in Milan, in hopes of selling more copies of his book, The Power of the Critic. (Was there ever a more pompous title?)

 

Not even five minutes into this film, you’ll seek escape.

 

This particular day is different; James’ oft-repeated presentation concludes with the appearance of the coquettish Berenice Hollis (Debicki). She has sought him out — for reasons Smith’s script never makes clear — and mutual lust slides them into bed.

 

Cue a gratuitously explicit sex scene that suggests we’re in for an erotic thriller: a genre Capotondi never comes close to delivering.

 

The affair feels doomed from the start, James far too consumed with himself to be anything approaching a desirable companion. But then, unexpectedly — rather unbelievably — she tags along when he’s invited to spend the weekend at the luxurious Lake Como villa of wealthy art power-broker Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger).

 

James assumes that his scholarly wisdom is desired, but no such luck; Cassidy has something much more ambitious — and probably larcenous — in mind. His immediate neighbor is celebrated painter Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland), a self-imposed recluse following the long-ago loss of his life’s output, in a fire. He subsequently has achieved mythic status in the art world, fueled by the tantalizing notion that this “confounding J.D. Salinger of the canvas” still might be working.

 

Precisely because nobody owns a Debney — his works having been destroyed before they could be galleried, and then sold — Cassidy. Must. Have. One. By any means necessary, but preferably if the silver-tongued James a) can verify whether Debney is, in fact, still painting; and b) then can finesse a work from him.

 

At which point, the film settles into a series of obliquely calculated cat-and-mouse conversations, much to the amusement of Debney, far too smart to succumb to faux flattery; and the growing frustration of James, getting nowhere; and the rapidly increasing exasperation of viewers still waiting (in vain) for something worthwhile to occur.

 

All while Berenice, now also the object of Debney’s paternal attention, wanders about like a prized doe. We halfway expect one of the men to gift her with a collar.

 

The third act eventually descends into rash conduct, as greed overpowers judgment; this much is expected, and in keeping with the naked avarice on display. But Debicki can’t come even close to handling what Smith’s script demands of Berenice, whose clueless behavior prompts rolling eyes and snorts of disgust. Smith clearly hasn’t the slightest idea how to write a credible female character; this one is nothing but a one-dimensional fantasy.

 

More damningly, because Capotondi’s film wastes so much time with its artificially baroque banter, there’s no foundation for the final scene’s “surprise reveal,” which merely prompts questions that Smith’s script can’t begin to answer.

 

In fairness, Jagger is a hoot; he’s the only actor able to extract maximum smugness from every individual syllable of the smoothly haughty Cassidy’s irony-laced speeches. Jagger also swans about quite persuasively, in this patrician setting. He looks like he belongs, which is more than can be said for anybody else in this overcooked fiasco.

 

Sutherland occasionally manages sympathetic charm, particularly with respect to Debney’s fondness for Berenice, but even he ultimately is undone by Smith’s hopelessly ornate dialogue. People simply don’t talk like this.

 

Bang, for his part, never ceases to be insufferably annoying. We loathe James on sight, and Bang never does anything to alter that opinion. And it’s not merely that James is a contemptuous character; Bang never really settles into the role, as if he doesn’t respect the material. (If so, I can’t blame him.)

Capotondi’s film is the sort of pompous nonsense that gives a bad name to indie cinema. Proceed at your own risk.