The life and times of a troubled artist who lived fast and died young emerges in the Australian biopic ACUTE MISFORTUNE.
Originally produced in 2018 and making its’ way finally into the world, the film tells of Erik Jensen (who wrote the book this film is based on, Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen) and his four-and-a-half year odyssey to follow Adam Cullen, an abstract and experimental artist whose means of expression were through the context of sex and violence and not afraid to pick up a gun and point it in whatever direction he fancied.
However, in 2000, he was awarded Australia’s prestigious Archibald Prize for a portrait of actor David Wenham, an actor who has appeared in films like THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and VAN HELSING. Overall though, Cullen’s style was a very grungy perspective, helped or hindered in part for his own inner demons and addictions to speed – and subsequently heroin.
Jensen (Toby Wallace), who was an ambitious 19-year old journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald at the time of their first meeting, goes to visit Cullen (Daniel Henshall) at his place in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, where he is is commissioned to write a biography of the artist and to get to the inner heart of what he is doing. However, the enlightening discoveries do prove to be very confrontational, particularly after one incident when Jensen is sprayed with buckshot from a gun that Cullen fires.
Cullen appears to be a very resilient and conflicted individual who contradicts Jensen whenever possible and becomes increasingly so in the presence of his parents when Jensen wants to learn a bit more about his background. His mother, Carmel (Genevieve Lemon) claims Adam shaved his head and then boasted he had leukaemia, before she herself reveals the condition herself. The stage is set for a lot more tough reveals, as Cullen and Jensen attempt to write the ultimate book…..
ACUTE MISFORTUNE is an interesting and open-end account of one of Australia’s key art figureheads – albeit ultimately tragic – focusing on the mind and soul behind the canvas and paint and has two stirringly watchable performances from the leads. It certainly isn’t going to make you appreciate art as much as the mindset and psychology of the man behind the vision.
One senses that the film could have been a lot broader with some of the art taking centre stage throughout, but it does reveal a fair amount of Cullen’s character in the context of his relationship with Jensen.
