Let me say first that The Burnt Orange Heresy is possibly the worst title for anything--book, film, race horse, I've ever seen. I know it's the title of the book the film is based on and it doesn't matter. It's awful. Second, I've read this film described as being about a "heist." When you think "heist," you think hoodlums, action, movement, guns, chases. You're not going to see that in this movie. What you do have is a great deal of intelligent, if meandering, talk about art and identity. There is a swirl of inexplicable, even nonsensical, violence at the end, but it's unearned and comes out of left field.
The acting is very fine. Elizabeth Debicki does a wonderful job--intelligent, warm, tough-minded when it's called for, mysterious and charming. Debicki's final scene bristles with chilling intensity. Her partner in the film, Claes Bang, is equally intelligent and well-spoken as a pill-addicted art critic. He's also about 15 years too old for the part of a "young boy.". Donald Sutherland is as warm and charming as Debicki, playing as an aging, reclusive painter. The scenes between the 2 of them are some of the best in the movie. MIck Jagger holds his own as a silky, slightly threatening, millionaire art critic.
It would be the farthest stretch to call the movie a heist film. It bears no relation to the genre. Rather it's a talky, languid, well-acted film about secrets and Art.
Review of The Burnt Orange Heresy
