Painting With Joan
2018 · 4m
Directed by Jack Henry Robbins
Genres: comedy, dark comedy, experimental
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Joan, the host of a Bob Ross-style how-to-paint show, lets her deeply private predilections leak out in unexpected and disturbing ways as her lesson unfolds.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Takes the most sacrosanct, wholesome format on television and lets it rot from the inside out—a premise so obviously subversive that somehow no one had the nerve to actually make it until Robbins did, and he nails the tonal whiplash between instructional serenity and whatever darkness Joan's really painting.
A cleanly executed riff on the instructional video that understands its formal constraints well enough to weaponize them; the discipline of the how-to-paint structure becomes the container for something genuinely unsettling, which is craft awareness in service of meaning.
The entire film hinges on Robbins' decision to keep Joan's voice steady and patient even as her language becomes increasingly unhinged—that refusal to break character or telegraph the horror is the single choice that makes a premise that could've been shallow actually land with real discomfort.
Reviews
Cribbing from public access classics (Bob Ross particularly in this case) Jack Henry Robbins hijacks our collective nostalgia and bends it to absurdist comedy. The film's humor is undeniably well-crafted, and the direction is exquisitely modulated to wring maximum effect from its awkward pauses, and linger on far-off glances.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2018