Vincent & Theo

The film is uncommonly evocative. [19 Dec 1990, p.D6]

Vincent & Theo is more than art appreciation, it is a treasure in its own right, unframed and arcing in the projector's light.

Altman's approach in Vincent & Theo is a very immediate, intimate one. He would rather show us things happening than provide themes and explanations. He is most concerned with the relationship that made the art possible.

It has sharp performances in the title roles, by British actors Tim Roth and Paul Rhys, and its color scheme is so pungent I'm sure the real Van Gogh would applaud it. But it doesn't have the wide-ranging visual imagination of Mr. Altman's best work. [28 Nov 1990, p.14]

For all its merits - a lush canvas, a first-rate cast, a thoughtful director examining a theme directly relevant to his own checkered career - Vincent & Theo doesn't quite measure up. [16 Nov 1990]

It's a tortuous, unsatisfying movie, but it's not like any other film I've ever seen about an artist, and it has sequences of blinding intensity.

Vincent & Theo is a by-the-numbers art biography that barely succeeds in recapping the best-known events in the life of its subject, Vincent van Gogh. There is something almost chilling in the degree of the director's evident disengagement from his material and the complete lack of craft with which he has filmed it.