A sensation at the 2016 LA Film Fest, Amber Tamblyn’s directorial debut PAINT IT BLACK is now playing at the Music Hall cinema in Beverly Hills.

The film stars Alia Shawkat as an art student in a nightmare confrontation with her dead boyfriend’s mother, Janet McTeer (who could play Joan Crawford and Bette Davis simultaneously in a one-woman show).

This deliciously overwrought drama spectacularly fails the Bechdel Test, since both women are obsessed with the memory of the late Michael (Rhys Wakefield). But the tour-de-force performances of the two leads—and Tamblyn’s command of her mise-en-scène—confirm PAINT IT BLACK’s cult status.

 

PAINT IT BLACK, through May 25.

On Friday, May 19, Janet Fitch, the author of the source novel Paint it Black, will participate in a Q & A following the 7:30 pm show.

LAEMMLE MUSIC HALL, 9036 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills.

laemmle.com/films/41919