It centers around Jerome, the poor nerdy kid who is the natural one to get picked on all through school. The thing is, Jerome is also an extremely talented artist and early on, this skill sometimes saves him from the bullies. He fantasises about becoming an artist and while flipping through a pamphlet advertising an Art School, decides to go. He has grown up in the suburbs of New York City and Strathmore Art College is in the inner city.

Right out of the gate, the art student stereotypes are identified and are dead on: the vegan spiritualist with white dreadlocks, the windbag who just blithers on and on about nothing, the class suck-up and the untrained ‘naïve’ artist whose work is either rubbish or outsider, depending on who’s critiquing. These are just a few – no one is spared, especially the instructors.

Aside from getting picked on all through school, Jerome has never really had a sexual experience. It seems now, in a more sympathetically inclined milieu that he might be in a better position (shall we say) to make up for lost time. One of his classmates who functions as the cynical smart-ass character, takes Jerome under his wing and tries to help him rectify the situation, unsuccessfully.

Jerome focuses on one pretty young woman who had been a nude model in his figure drawing class. He goes out with her a few times but she ends up with one of his classmates – the dumb athletic character who has the untrained outsider appeal. Jerome’s work is easily the best in his classes, both technically and creatively but he just keeps getting overlooked for the lesser but splashier work. Another art world cliché? The frustration in both failure to gain recognition from his artist peers combined with the failure to get laid, begins to build up, driving Jerome to distraction and a snapping point. At the same time as this is all going on, there are also a series of murders in the area targeting young women. The atmosphere gets more charged and things begin to come to a kind of head.

The acting was good in this, Max Minghella as Jerome, captures the angst ridden character from Dan Clowes’s original comic, with that kind of ‘deer in the headlights’ look. Joel Moore plays Bardo, his would-be mentor with a great wise-guy attitude, while John Malkovich does a perfect job as a smarmy, ambitious but ultimately loser art instructor. The all around English character actor, Jim Broadbent, is wonderful in the role of Jimmy, an irritable alcoholic former artist with secrets.

Although artists and art student stereotypes have been already somewhat addressed, especially in the fine and former television series, ‘Six Feet Under’, ‘Art School Confidential’ takes on the whole concept from student to class and teacher, ultimately examining the whole institution of art education as well as the peripheral scene of hangers on and art galleries.

Zwigoff and Clowes have turned out an excellent satire on this subject and it is darker than ‘Ghost World’ which gives it more of a kick. Not necessarily a profound statement (I don’t feel that it was intended as that) and doesn’t tell us anything that we don’t know, but completely on the money with its assessment of this world, with its trends and pretensions. A hilarious way to spend an hour and forty minutes.

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille. For more articles and reviews by Marc on The New Review, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.