Robert Altman, the great ironist of American movies, can't resist beginning Vincent & Theo with video of an art auction at Christie's, where Van Gogh's Sunflowers attracts dizzying multi-million-dollar bids. Dissolve to the utterly squalid hovel where Vincent (Tim Roth) lives--reminding us that the artist sold but one painting in his poor, tormented lifetime. Vincent & Theo is an unusual and--fittingly enough--impressionistic look at Vincent and his brother Theo (Paul Rhys), the mad genius and the art broker. These parallel lives unfold, with Vincent's celebrated wallow in the fires of art running alongside Theo's neurotic struggle to fit into the real world. Roth is mesmerizing and frightening as Vincent, while Rhys gives a more mannered performance that fits Theo's tortured ambivalence. The eerie buzz of Gabriel Yared's music helps us get inside Vincent's head. If the true-life circumstances are unavoidably grim and Altman's pace is slow, almost druggy, the film nevertheless casts a spell. (Vincent's eloquent letters to Theo are beautifully used in Paul Cox's Vincent, a good companion piece to this version of the artist's life.) --Robert Horton
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The eternal struggle between madness and genius takes its toll on the brothers Van Gogh in this "luminous" (LA Weekly) masterpiece from Academy Award®-nominated* director Robert Altman. Tim Roth and Paul Rhys give "stupendous performances" (Rolling Stone) in the roles of tortured artist Vincent and his brother Theo in this "beautiful, disturbing and powerful film" (Screen) that is "as rich and tactile as a Van Gogh painting" (New York Post).In life, hewas impoverished, his work largely ignored; yet today, paintings by Vincent Van Gogh fetch millionsof dollars at auction. This supreme irony is laid bare in the passionate story of an obsessive artist driven by inexorable demons and his alternately devoted and despairing younger brother, who seemsunable to live with him or without him.*2001: Gosford Park; 1993: Short Cuts; 1992: The Player; 1975: Nashville; 1970: M*A*S*H