Peter Hujar’s Day, 2025.
Written and Directed by Ira Sachs.
Starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall.
SYNOPSIS:
A recently discovered conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974 reveals a glimpse into New York City’s downtown art scene and the personal struggles and epiphanies that define an artist’s life.
In 1974, journalist Linda Rosenkranz conducted a series of interviews with artists across New York City to learn what an average day consisted of, with the intention of compiling those conversations into an informative book. That book never came to fruition, although some of the conversations remain on tape. One of those is a conversation between Linda (played here by Rebecca Hall) and photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw), spanning several hours, economically cut up and edited by Affonso Gonçalves in writer/director Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day.
The film’s goal seems to be to accomplish what that theoretical book aimed for, but here with a specific emphasis on Peter Hujar and his casual observations, habitual knack for white lies, and vulnerability in questioning his worth as an artist. As he meticulously recalls each moment from the day prior, there are, unsurprisingly, tangents along the way that further highlight everything mentioned above.
There is one fatal flaw here, though; as Peter Hujar name-drops several individuals within his orbit, there is a struggle to invest or care for anyone unfamiliar with this industry circa 1970s, considering that they are all mentioned and talked about, not characters if you were to get to know them in any traditional capacity on-screen. This also means that much of his stories involving these people go in one ear and out the other, with only small elements related to Peter’s personality and current psyche remaining.
No matter who locked into these roles Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall are (the former is especially successful at capturing an uncertainty, bordering on a crisis, about what a typical day is like for Peter and whether or not it is artistically fulfilling), or how authentic the costumes in the apartment room looks to the decade, this feels less like a film and more like an hour lengthy talk show interview. The fact that the film is inherently stagey isn’t an issue; rather, from a narrative standpoint, there is nowhere to go, meaning this is literally an hour+ of listening to one man talk about a relatively uneventful but psychologically probing day.
As such, there also isn’t much to say about Peter Hujar’s Day, which barely runs 70 minutes without credits and tries to move the characters around the inside of the apartment and out on the balcony, flashing forward through time as much as possible in an attempt to keep the visuals fresh and moving. Even then, there is often the feeling that listening to this film would yield just as much as actually watching it. To reiterate, that’s also not much to begin with. Peter Hujar comes across as a fascinating figure, but this is a film less interested in him and more fascinated by a gimmick that nearly drowns out the little insight it offers. In some respects, this bold take is more admirable than a straightforward, generic biopic, but that doesn’t mean this approach necessarily works for anyone who isn’t deeply invested in this scene coming in.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
