Natalie Portman’s Bold Attempt to Be Funny Fails Miserably

There’s nothing satisfying about watching talented actors give everything they’ve got in subpar projects. And in The Gallerist, Oscar-winners Natalie Portman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph—along with Jenna Ortega, Zach Galifianakis, Sterling K. Brown, and Daniel Brühl—compete to see who can prop up a tedious art-world satire.

The answer, alas, is none of them, as Cathy Yan’s comedy is an irredeemably obvious and one-note affair that says everything in its first 10 minutes and spends the remainder of its time vainly trying to drum up humor from a wan Weekend at Bernie’s-esque scenario.

The Gallerist’s early spotlight, however, is on its lead’s short white wig, which reflects her protagonist’s sharpness, intensity, and snooty fastidiousness, and looks so awful that it’s difficult to focus on anything else.

Straightening up Stella’s pieces before crowds arrive, Polina comes upon orange safety cones surrounding a puddle that her assistant Kiki (Ortega) explains is the result of a dripping air conditioner. Convinced this eyesore will ruin the show, she removes the cones against Kiki’s advice and focuses on another emerging headache.

Waiting to enter the premises is Dalton Hardberry (Galifianakis), a snobby influencer whom Polina dislikes but agrees to humor lest he rip her gallery a new one online. Her labors, unfortunately, are for naught, as Dalton—in a goofy bucket hat and thick black glasses—is dismissive and cruel, calling Polina a hack whose career is due solely to her wealthy (and more art-knowledgeable) tuna-king ex-husband, Tom (Brown).

Things get heated, with Polina dismissing him as a nobody and Dalton decrying her gutlessness and desperation. Before he can sh-t-post Polina into oblivion, however, he slips on the gallery’s wet floor and impales himself on Stella’s enormous sculpture of an emasculator—a device typically used to castrate large animals.

This calamitous accident seems to be it for Polina, especially since her attempts to cover it up are interrupted by the appearance of Kiki and, with her, a gaggle of patrons. The thing is, the visitors don’t bat an eyelash at Dalton’s corpse and soon decide that the piece is magnificent.

This is The Gallerist’s big joke, along with the fact that, in response to this gruesome turn of events, Polina renames the sculpture and proceeds to pass it off as legitimate anti-patriarchy art rather than a crime scene. In that endeavor, she’s unexpectedly aided by Kiki’s influential aunt Marianne Gorman (Zeta-Jones), who decides that it’s fascinating and, upon realizing that the speared body is real, helps hatch a plan to capitalize on its popularity by selling it for a pretty penny to a gullible collector and then storing it in a Miami freeport where it’ll never be seen again.

The Gallerist thus definitively makes its point that modern art is nonsense whose value is determined by catty, cutthroat men and women who view it as merely a means-to-an-end commodity. Everyone is greedy, venomous, full of hot air, and/or willing to do whatever it takes to be successful, as Yan and James Pedersen’s script imagines its characters as archetypes cut from a well-worn mold.

At the head of that class is Polina, who carries herself with snappy, fussy imperiousness and a hunger for legitimacy, but whose various issues—most having to do with being thought of as a former trophy wife—aren’t fresh or funny.

Unwilling to have her career go down the drain (and to potentially wind up in prison), Polina barrels ahead with her scheme, abetted by the haughty Marianne and hesitant Kiki, whose anxiety over this crisis repeatedly drives her to the bathroom to vomit.

Neither of these cohorts is amusing, nor is Stella, who’s understandably shocked by the impromptu transformation of her sculpture, and who, out of self-preservation, agrees to let Polina’s ruse play out rather than immediately call the authorities. All these actresses commit fully to their roles, straining to infuse them with both conniving cartoonishness and empathetic feminist ambition. The film’s plotting, though, is as dull as its dialogue, stranding its stars in a procession of tedious situations.

Polina and company’s gung-ho amorality is supposed to be hilariously cutting but comes off as clichéd, and The Gallerist’s narrative complications do little to electrify their shenanigans. Repulsed by the buzzy sculpture, Tom crashes the party and demands it be thrown out, sparking a passionate tête-à-tête with Polina in which they argue over who did more for the other and the art-world obsession that ultimately ruined their marriage.

Their anger, tiresomely, gives way to passion, inspiring Paulina to call an audible and stage an auction for the piece to drive up its price. Time is of the essence, too, because with their air conditioner kaput, the corpse is beginning to smell and attract flies.

Marianne’s chosen dupe is a trust-fund moron (Brühl) who’s eager to prove that he can thrive on his own, and between him and Tom, The Gallerist casts male collectors as insecure clowns who use art to validate their manhood. Yan’s camera races, whooshes, and glides about the gallery (including travelling through walls) to maintain a pulse-pounding, whiplash-inducing pace, and her intense close-ups and canted angles contribute to the in-your-face, topsy-turvy atmosphere.

Yet for all its helter-skelter movement, the film is monotonous, striking the same few satiric chords with only oh-so-minor variations.

Despite Dalton’s fate, The Gallerist bluntly skewers professional art pretensions, in the process squandering Portman’s full-throttle performance as an entrepreneur resolved to make a killing from a killing. Strutting around in a short black dress and chunky white heels, the actress tries to portray Polina as a striking and silly striver intent on stepping out of others’ shadows, refuting her naysayers, and pulling off a historic swindle—all out of her sincere love of art.

Like the rest of the proceedings, though, she’s a drearily familiar creation that misses the comedic mark.