Paint

Bob Ross is the Internet’s favorite artist. Looked at one way, that’s pretty remarkable, due to the unremarkable nature of his paintings, and his passing before the Internet was anything recognizable from a 2023 vantage point. He wasn’t a big personality, or one we could identify with, or one who took stances on anything. Which I think is just it; he’s a warm presence, one who was content to do his thing with an incredibly steady hand, and to otherwise keep to himself. It was almost radical how downright pleasant he was on television. Especially when we look at the rise of reality television and the dominance of bombastic blockbusters at the theater since. There’s something magical about sitting down and having someone patiently and slowly show you their craft, gently walking through their thoughts.

My generation grew up in a world full of Bob Ross references and parody. The earliest one I remember seeing was in an early season of Family Guy, although I’d bet it wasn’t the first. Add more earnest tributes, such as a Google Doodle, a Twitch stream of every episode of The Joy of Painting, a Chia Pet, and more, and you’re left with an incomplete portrait of a person, one made in negative space. Much is known about Bob Ross, but none of it seems to bleed into pop culture knowledge. We just marinate in a world he once inhabited, wondering who he really was behind the scenes, leading to online rumors.

This is what Paint is clearly trying to capitalize on.

Carl Nagle (Owen Wilson) is an institution on PBS Burlington, VT. He’s been on the air for decades, producing one painting a show, keeping everyone company for an hour every afternoon. He has a dedicated fan-club at the station, and is beloved in the community. But everything starts to change when the station brings in Ambrosia (Ciara Renée) to fill an extra hour of programming.

This is an odd little film. It never quite feels sure of where it’s going, simultaneously doing too much and not enough. That is, it’s scattered. It does have a plot, but there are a bunch of scenes which feel incredibly out of place within it. And it feels like it’s in a rush to get there. For example, Carl’s star falls the instant Ambrosia shows up. We barely get to know her or see her show or determine what the viewing public thinks before everyone starts abandoning Carl. As such, it doesn’t really land in a way that makes his soul searching feel earned or necessary.

And we can’t get a grip on the side characters, either, as they appear to just be props. Sure, a number of them get just enough detail to feel like they should matter, but their creation feels incomplete. Ambrosia is pretty well developed, and played quite well by Renée. And Wilson does a lovely Bob Ross impression, even as the character is kinda plain.

The movie’s tone is all over the place. It swings from some (mild) gross out humor to digs at PBS to some (light) sex comedy stuff to bizarre situations. It’s aiming for irreverent, and it kinda succeeds, but also misses? There are some fun sequences, such as when Katherine must avoid being seen hanging out outside Carl’s house while his new girlfriend is over. And the climactic scene is pretty great in a few directions which I of course won’t spoil.

But it’s mostly an uninspired movie. It wants to posit “what goes on behind the scenes in the life of Bob Ross?” The answer looks like “nothing much”. It wants to be a character study, but the pacing is all off, and we come to conclusions far earlier than he does, making it feel drawn out and tedious. It has some good scene ideas, but never really threads them together in a compelling way. Things happen because the plot needs them to, not because it feels right for the characters, making it hard to get invested in them.

It does end up a pleasant and inoffensive enough film, with some good laughs, but just as many “meh”s. It won’t be your favorite movie, but you’re unlikely to hate it. More likely, it will quietly come and go from your life, with nary an impact.