Ben Whishaw turns out again to be the brilliant actor we all knew he was in, if we looked carefully carefully IRA SACHS‘”Peter Hujar’s day.” The filmThat takes place in 1974 New York City, is an intimate two -hand player with only Whishaw and Rebecca Hall as gay photographer Peter Hujar and author Linda Rosenkrantz, respectively. They gathered, it is true, a cold day in December, where Hujar talks about all the events from the former, which involved photo occasions with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, and a lot of constantly nothing. But the little moments of a day become profound as Peter’s winding monologue continues. The author/director Sach’s extraordinary new film never breaks from the couple, and sometimes becomes a documentary about the actors’ greatness, Mozart has the soundtrack when Sachs and cinematographer Alex Ashe take the longing for, lingering B-role by the artists.
Essentially a monologue that would not be misplaced on a stage, “Peter Hujar’s Day” makes the case that every moment of our lives, no matter how everyday, has a value. Peters (Whishaw) story of 24 hours of his own life opens a window to the art environment in 1970s New York, over half a decade from AIDS killed most of its suppliers and practitioners. The film is a lazy, ruminant afternoon bathed in sunlight and complaining reflection when Peter lively remembers interactions with names that will be familiar to you, such as Susan Sontag, and other intellectuals and creators of the period. There is a discursive thing about ordering Chinese food that gets a strange power.
There is no intrigue to speak of in this sensitively directed film that somehow gets excitement when Peter dissolves the crack from his yesterday, Rebecca Hall like Rosenkrantz in a fantastic red cauldron, cigarettes and spirits flow freely everywhere. Sachs previously directed Whishaw to one of its best turns in ”passages“The anxious love triangle that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2023. His camera is obsessed with these actors and their beauty, the only way to mark the passage of time is the characters’ subtle clothing changes.
Here is a test of how a director can extract brilliance from one place, with only two actors. Production designer Stephen Phelps enjoys the tight minimalism in Linda’s apartment on the 94th street, with the editor Affonso Gonçalves who elegantly chisels the film down to a lean for 75 minutes. Hall occasionally gives gay-best comments when Peter Hujar goes through the smallest events during his previous day, and it is obvious how these actors had an immediate chemistry at the recording site, Sachs directly up close but also only released the camera. By working from a book that is word-by-word transcription of Peter Hujar’s recesses, the film finds Slug Poetry in everyday life. Whishaw is quite curious motive for making a movie that seems to study him, chain -smoking and drinking in a turtleneck.
How does a printout of a conversation become a movie? Sachs is the applicant in the hunt for the answer to that question, but what he has captured here is strangely gripping and moving. “Peter Hujar’s Day” has the feeling of a conversation late at night where you have revealed too much to one of the people closest to you. The film keeps us trapped to Linda’s apartment, and only breaks sometimes to take us out on the roof, afternoon in New York City (and eventually at night) as a soothing conditioner against claustrophobia. Sachs intercepts in depth, perhaps Peter’s darkest revelation is the “smoker’s hangover” he has from constantly having cigarettes in his mouth. But better not to stop now.
Sachs, the director of heartbreaking films such as his very personal “Keep the Lights on” and the late gay romance “Love is Strange”, is interested in the actress’s semiotics but never stumble with the actual feelings produced in the process. When “Peter Hujar’s Day” is over, you feel confused by a spent day. The British actor Whishaw is best known for expressing Paddington and for silent chaotic psychosexual work in films such as “perfume” and, of course, Sach’s “passages” (where he gives a bruise monologue to his now former boyfriend and warns him to not get closer or at the end of the movie). But here he gets a monumental showcase and, frankly, an achievement to memorize as Peter’s narrative rolls out, Hall approaches with his tape recorder and an eager ear.
Sachs is one of the great ethnographers of human feelings in crisis. Here he works in a quieter register, no exploding love triangles or toxic relationships in sight. The film is drawing attention to its own art, and starts with a patter on the screen that reminds us that what we are looking at is a construction. Whishaw’s monologue is becoming increasingly emotional towards the end of the film, although “Peter Hujar’s Day” never turns from his source material to something inflated and melodramatic. This is a movie you want to live inside. It is Sach’s least commercial offer in a filmography that is always challenging, longing and obsessed with its actors, whether Isabelle Huppert in “Frankie” or John Lithgow in “Love is Strange”. Sachs has found an impeccably synchronized employee in Ben Whishaw who he should not let go of sometime soon.
Rating: A-
“Peter Hujar’s Day” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2025. It is currently seeking distribution in the United States.
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