Color Me Kubrick: Review By Mushy

If you are a fan of the late director Stanley Kubrick and you have followed his films, I would think you would love Color Me Kubrick. If you have only seen Full Metal Jacket, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange then you will probably also like this movie. (However, if in addition to this you haven't studied up on the director you may not like this film). If you have only seen one of Stanley Kubrick's movies (Eyes Wide Shut lets say), or you haven't seen any of his movies then you would be better advised to take your hard earned money and see something else.

Color Me Kubrick isn't a movie about Stanley Kubrick. It is about his impersonator Alan Conway (John Malkovich) and the way he was able to deceive people. However, the film is more about the cult of celebrity, how people will believe what they want to believe, and how sometimes we will take advice from anyone (no matter how awful it is) as long as we think they can help us get to some mythical "next level." Like Kubrick himself this film has a wry wit about it, and half the fun is watching Conway spin yarns, get normally intelligent people to buy his line of BS, and then see him face or not face the consequences. No matter how low he seems to go he never seems to be out, and simply by continuing to say he's Stanley Kubrick helps open doors for him. In the end, he is sent to a rehabilitation facility (a timely place in this age of celebrity meltdowns/reinventions) and it is here that it seems like Conway has pulled off his biggest coup. Living in the lap of luxury he smiles at the camera having again duped more people and this time he didn't even have to use the Kubrick card.

I didn't know if I was going to like this movie. The trailers make John Malkovich seem like he's playing things over the top, but I realized that he was simply embodying the kinds of slicksters that parade around the entertainment industry. His performance here is nothing less than inspired, and I only wish that I could imagine this film being accepted by a wider audience. Some people complain that we never get to find out out what made Conway act the way he did, while others thought that the use of music from some of Kubrick's signature films was a bit too overt. I thought everything about this film played in a very subtle way. Sure, this movie referenced the work of Kubrick but I think that was the point. I didn't feel that it should have been less overt.

Director Brian Cook and screenwriter Anthony Frewin have done a very solid job of capturing the essence of a Kubrick film, while telling the tale of a man who tried to capture people's imaginations by claiming he was Kubrick. Take heart of what I've said at the top of this review and then enjoy Color Me Kubrick for all the fun and whimsical nature it evokes.