A past-present temporal mashup, “Paint” from first-time feature writer-director Brit McAdams is set in a world that has stood still, or at least been slow to catch up to our present day. The film, which is set in Vermont and is said to be a sendup of pioneering TV artist Bob Ross, is a deadpan, perhaps too deadpan and not-very-funny comedy that paints a portrait (excuse me, it’s contagious) of Carl Nargle (Owen Wilson), a bearded, 'fro-sporting, pipe-smoking star of the local Burlington, Vermont, PBS station. Carl’s show is entitled “Paint,” and on it he, OK, paints pictures, all of them of Vermont’s Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the state.
Carl is a superstar to legions of oldsters and barflies enraptured by his every word (and picture). This includes his coworkers, who are mostly women, as well as the station manager Tony (Stephen Root), who cannot ingratiate himself with Carl enough and proudly displays one of Carl’s paintings on his office wall. When he isn’t on live television, Carl tools around in his “Van-tastic” orange Chevy van, which is equipped with “Paintr” vanity plates, a Citizens Band radio and a “custom-made” sofa bed.
Carl, who lives in a barn lined with his paintings, has his choice of the women at the station, including his ex Katherine (Michaela Watkins). The two split up after Katherine cheated on Carl with a Vermont Mountain Express hunk. But she still has feelings for him. Also under Carl’s spell are middle-aged Wendy (Wendi McLendon-Covey), young staffer Jenna (the likable Lucy Freyer) and the strangely wound-up Beverly (Lusia Strus). In the lives of all of these people comes Ambrosia (a charismatic Ciara Renee), a young painter inspired by Carl “as a child,” who becomes the station’s new star and the latest subject of a cushy feature story in the Vermont daily the Burlington Bonnet. Carl is upset, and not even a suggestive fondue dinner at the local eatery Cheesepot with Jenna is going to cheer him up.
