"Painted Lady" is perfectly dreadful television fare. Don't waste your time with it. Plot strands, sometimes pretty and other times gritty, fly off in every direction without the slightest resolution. Characters -- a boy in the bath, street thugs, art dealers with Italian accents, restorers, purveyors of rough trade, even a dog -- come and go. The film begins as a British police investigatory, mind you, but the cops fail to properly investigate what should be an absurdly easy murder to solve. They are out of it by the second reel. (Where is Hercule Poirot when you need him!) Helen Mirren, unconvincing as a retired rocker with a pin in the side of her nose, is also unconvincing as a Polish noblewoman in disguise. She fails to save it. And the credits roll.
Mirren's character, you see, lives off the largesse of Sir Charles Stafford, the aged -- and debt-burdened -- proprietor of a great house somewhere in the British Isles. One night, while she lolls with a boy toy, Stafford is killed in what appears to be the heist of an Old Master hanging in the hall. The audience immediately knows who done it and why. For reasons known only to the scriptwriter, Mirren hides Stafford's gun from the police, reconnects with Stafford's wayward son, and sets out to recover the painting, which may or may not exist.
The audience is treated to a good bit of art history and one of those plummy high-stakes art auctions, but it is all pointless. Nothing happens. Nothing makes sense. And Mirren's song lyrics are just awful. "Painted Lady" is "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" light. Watch something else.
Mirren's character, you see, lives off the largesse of Sir Charles Stafford, the aged -- and debt-burdened -- proprietor of a great house somewhere in the British Isles. One night, while she lolls with a boy toy, Stafford is killed in what appears to be the heist of an Old Master hanging in the hall. The audience immediately knows who done it and why. For reasons known only to the scriptwriter, Mirren hides Stafford's gun from the police, reconnects with Stafford's wayward son, and sets out to recover the painting, which may or may not exist.
The audience is treated to a good bit of art history and one of those plummy high-stakes art auctions, but it is all pointless. Nothing happens. Nothing makes sense. And Mirren's song lyrics are just awful. "Painted Lady" is "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" light. Watch something else.