"Apparently too complaisant to earn approval from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Timoner, a documentarian herself,
dulls the edge of Mapplethorpe's thornier elements, instead, the Robert her film portrays is an amorphous mass of petulance, narcissism and ambiguity, neither drive nor ruthlessness can be traced from Smith's performance. As if things, homosexuality, BDSM, a Polaroid camera, a sugar daddy in the person of Sam Wagstaff (an affable Hickey), among others, simply happen to this nonentity, and he take them willy-nilly. Also, Marianne Rendón's Patti Smith is equally bland, a disgrace to an iconic figure. Contrary to Mapplethorpe's explosively erotic works, the biopic is too nondescript to make a splash anywhere, save for the 16mm film texture that is alluringly pleasing to contemplate, however, the sheen loses some of its flavor and turns bilious when the film careers toward its destined finish line. The director's cut, released in 2020, runs several minutes longer by interleaving scenes that fumble for some religious influence on Mapplethorpe's anima and artistic inspiration, a fool's errand to inject some semblance of meaningfulness to a picture largely skims on the surface of a controversial figure."
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