I, Portrait: Review

23rd July 2024

Julian (Nathan Hill) is happily married to Carmen (Natalie Heslop) and they have a perfect life. Until one day Carmen confesses that she’s had an unusual ability since childhood. The ability to bring to life whatever she draws. Amazed by this side of his wife that he never knew, Julian does whatever he can to set her career going as an artist, but soon things take a sour turn.

Stephanie (Stephanie Sass), an old friend of Carmen’s comes back into her life and they pick up right where they left off. However, Stephanie has her sights sight on Julian and his indulgence in his own fantasies threatens to tear his marriage apart.

I, Portrait is a thriller written and directed by Nathan Hill which attempts to bring back a genre long forgotten in cinema. Or at least a genre long forgotten in theatrical releases. Casting himself again as the lead, this time his penchant for the shlocky and the absurd brings a more supernatural twist.

However, for all his good intentions to scratch an itch that cinema doesn’t provide anymore, Hill’s movie often exposes why that is the case. Audiences are just far too familiar with the tropes and cliches of those movies often labelled as ‘erotic thrillers’ and this is no different.

Even adding magical elements doesn’t do much for I, Portrait either. As for the most part audiences will know that a quirky element should be paid off later and they’re not wrong – No matter how ridiculous it is.

There are also parts of the movie that may suggest to the audience that Hill’s not confident that the running time will stretch to barely 80 minutes. This means audiences will have to sit through extended scenes which could have been cut down for pacing. Things such as montages between characters talking and having fun, an extended song during a club scene and a part where Julian is watching a bad movie on TV all could have been cut.

There are still the bare bones of what an audience may expect to see in such a movie as this, it just may take a little time or fast-forwarding to get to the plot.

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