Review | Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness movie review: Johnny Depp-directed artist biopic
Starring Riccardo Scamarcio as painter Amedeo Modigliani, Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness sees Johnny Depp try out directing again
3/5 stars
Johnny Depp returns to the director’s chair, some 27 years after his much-maligned directorial debut The Brave, with Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness, a lightweight historical biopic of the Italian Jewish painter Amedeo Modigliani.
The film had its premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain this week. Modi is played by Italian star Riccardo Scamarcio (Romanzo Criminale, John Wick: Chapter 2), whose intense green eyes blaze their way through this entire picture.
Depp brings us to Paris, with World War I under way and wounded soldiers on every street corner. Regardless, some are signing up for battle on the front lines, but all the poverty-stricken Modi wants to do is find recognition for his paintings and sculptures.
At a low ebb after an altercation in a restaurant, he is desperate to escape, feeling “like this whole city’s closing in on me”, but his friend and art dealer Zbo (Stephen Graham) pleads with him to stay.
