While a significant amount of focus has been dedicated to successful artists that headline concerts, movies, and art galleries, Nathan Ives’ new documentary “Somewhere in the Middle” focuses on the trials and tribulations of working artists. Featuring interviews with five artists, across different mediums, Ives intercuts between his subjects as they discuss everything from the call to create, to the problems that arise when art and commerce fail to reap the monetary awards that are needed for survival. Featuring an eclectic group of interviewees, Ives’s documentary is an unfussy portrait of working-class creators.
Yet while the subjects, themselves, might be interesting, Ives’s decision to essentially cross-cut between the five, using ‘inspirational’ quotes as preambles to whatever topic they may be discussing, makes for a sluggish watch. The constant use of talking heads, with little cutting to anything else, creates a tedious experience that quickly grows tiresome, even if the film only runs for 85 minutes.
If there is a saving grace within the film, it’s the subjects. Featuring interviews with actress Jasika Nicole (“Fringe,” “The Good Doctor,” “Underground”), musicians Griffin House and Aaron Tap, artist Jeff Nishinaka, and painter Dan McCaw, the film moves chronologically through their lives. Beginning with their childhood aspirations, before segueing into their initial jobs and their eventual decisions to dedicate themselves to their art full time. Their interviews feature the type of behind-the-curtain revelations rarely seen in discussing how to make it as an artist.
The insights offered by Nicole, who has been a working actress for a number of years now, are especially fascinating, as she tracks her theater beginnings in Alabama, to her eventual move to New York, luckily getting an agent after a chance encounter outside of a off-broadway play she was acting in. When she finally gets around to discussing her move into mainstream television and her almost big breaks, it’s with a surprising honesty. Her discontent with “Fringe,” in which she laments not having been given enough to do as a character, to her auditions for Sam Mendes’s “Away We Go,” in which she was made it as one of the top two choices, eventually losing out to Maya Rudolph, demonstrate the luck that sometimes differentiates a working actor from an A-lister.
All of these artists on their own are fascinating case studies, yet the problem with the film lies in its overall construction. “Somewhere in the Middle” too often falls back onto platitudes, reinforcing its central thesis about the perseverance of art and artists. It’s too simplistic of a film, never pushing against these artists or interrogating their lives. When Griffin House, a singer/songwriter, begins to discuss his wife’s miscarriage and his problems with alcohol, Ives refuses to dig into those moments, instead cutting to another artist who vaguely alludes to the problems that come with being an artist. Everything is surface level, creating an inspirational movie that is, in the end, too shallow.
That isn’t to suggest that “Somewhere in the Middle” is terrible by any means. Unfortunately, it’s just a middling documentary, where what you see is what you get –a number of interviewees broadly discussing their lives without any deeper insight. The film introduces a number of interesting artistic voices, but, in the end, doesn’t tell us anything that isn’t available on an artist’s Wikipedia page. [C]
