Lush. There was a time – the late 1930s to early 1950s – when Hollywood made pictures that were lush in their photography (typically B&W), their orchestral scores, and the attention to period details. That is not to say that films lack these characteristics today, just that styles have changed.
“The Oval Portrait” is an attempt to resurrect that style of 85 years ago, if only for 100 minutes or so.
In 1842, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story, which he revised and later published as “The Oval Portrait.” It is about an injured man finding such a painting in a deserted Italian mansion. While a minor tale in Poe’s oeuvre, it has been staged and filmed a number of times before.
Here the story has been updated to a contemporary Canadian city, with the cast of characters expanded to include a variety of avaricious individuals and a vengeful, jealous ghost. Despite that, unlike so many adaptations of similar works, the film keeps the romantic but despairingly terrible core of Poe’s story.
Ambrose Whitlock (Michael Swatton – “Silent Bite”) owns “Gora’s Antiques,” a by-appointment-only shop in the city. He is a quiet, solitary man, courteous but withdrawn, with only the most select clientele. Among those is the wealthy and ruthless Grayson (Simon Phillips – “The Omro Heist”) who has tried without luck to buy a portrait painting that Whitlock has in his shop. Instead, Grayson has hired Julian (Paul Thomas – “Hope”), a weak man who arranges for break-ins by petty criminals, to steal the painting.
Meanwhile, young artist Ava (Pragya Shail – “Shook”) is having a hard time of it. Her mother is always on the phone harping about Ava’s desire to make a life for herself in the city. And she has just lost her job at an art magazine that is in financial trouble. At this low point she happens to walk past the antique shop as Whitlock stands in the doorway, teacup in hand. His momentary friendly response to her wave, the wave of a stranger, lifts her spirit and also intrigues her. She researches the shop and makes an appointment to buy an easel.
This is how we are introduced to this story of love, obsession, death, and curse.
Writer/director Adrian Langley (“Butchers” series) has produced a film in the lush style of the 1940s period B movies. The musical score could have been written by Miklos Rozsa, but was done by Andrew Morgan Smith (“The Old Way”). And while the melodrama is thick, the performances by Shail and Swatton are exquisite. The only difference is the use of color – warm and inviting in the antique shop; cold and uncaring elsewhere. Some have described this as Corman-esque, as in his Poe sequence, but it references a gentler film making. The only discordant note is Gora herself (Louisa Capulet – “Silent Bite”), when she makes her appearance.
One other objection is the sudden wordiness of the penultimate scene. This is used to provide the narration explaining the motivation for what is happening, and is taken almost word for word from the last long paragraph of Poe’s story. While the information is critical, Langley could have done a better job of introducing it.
A must for fans of Poe and/or period films in the long-gone style of the Hollywood studios.
Runtime: One hour, 46 minutes
Availability: Limited release on Oct. 10, 2025
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