Contrapposto

Cricket enrolls at the state university. June expresses concern about the cost and the stereotype of artists going “nuts,” citing historical figures like Hitler and Stalin. She makes him promise not to blame her for his future problems, recounting a story of a friend whose adult son labels her a “smotherer.” 

June reflects on her own unrealized artistic talent and speculates that it may be building through generations. To connect with her, Cricket gives her a drawing lesson using a toy action figure. As he teaches her about proportion, he sees her with a new clarity, and she becomes completely absorbed in the process.

On Cricket’s first day of college, Roulin gives him his old red convertible. Olympia gives Cricket a tour of the university’s brutalist art building, where she has secured a studio. They observe other students’ conceptual work, including a pyramid of TVs and a model gallery displaying Polaroids of appropriated Richard Prince photos. Olympia then introduces Cricket to Sharon, a cheerful student whose massive, technically virtuosic painting of a modern crucifixion stuns him.

They attend a group critique where a student named Kyle Heaney presents a single Polaroid and is praised by faculty, including department head Paulson Arcenaux, for its conceptual rigor. When Sharon presents her painting, however, Arcenaux dismisses it as “phony.” Students and faculty criticize it as clichéd and anachronistic. The critique is interrupted by Marcus Carpenter, a retired professor, who delivers a blistering defense of Sharon and traditional skill. He accuses the department of “artistic fascism” for devaluing technical ability and challenges them to name a single great artist they have produced. The critique dissolves as the faculty walk out.

The next day, Olympia and Cricket watch Jed march with his ROTC unit. They decide to recruit Sharon for their planned art movement but find her studio has been completely cleared out. Later, Jed drives Cricket into the countryside to find Marcus Carpenter, the retired professor from the critique. In the car, Jed reveals his new personal “art form”: seducing and pleasuring neglected women, which he describes as a sensual and creative act.



They find Carpenter’s house, and he invites them to sit outside. Carpenter shares a manifesto he wrote, arguing that artists should only criticize each other after they have solved all the world’s real problems. He expands on his critique of the university’s art program, stating that it devalues fundamentals and promotes hollow theories. He commiserates with Cricket about the uninformed artistic dreams of the young. 

Carpenter reveals he is hosting a life-drawing session in a few moments. Jed leaves, but Carpenter invites Cricket to stay. A fellow student named Ann provides him with paper and charcoal.

Cricket begins attending Carpenter’s Sunday workshops, which consist of communal meals, life drawing, and painting lessons. Cricket learns the fundamentals of oil painting, struggling through many failed canvases but slowly improving. Carpenter hires Cricket for his sign-painting business over the summer, and the well-paying work is so successful that Cricket brings Jed in to help.

To illustrate a point about art versus craft, Carpenter takes Cricket and Jed to a local art fair. He argues that while technical skill is common, what separates art from craft is a compelling, original idea. He warns Cricket that simply painting a beautiful sky is not enough, as the subject has been explored by other famous artists. An artist, he claims, must serve an audience, rather than just their own ego. 

On the drive home, Jed is inspired and conceives of an interactive art piece where viewers can place their faces into cutouts in painted scenes of conflict, such as a father abusing his son. Carpenter declares the idea brilliant.

One Sunday at Carpenter’s life-drawing class, the model fails to appear, and it becomes Cricket’s turn to pose nude. Initially self-conscious, he soon feels a sense of calm and connection with the other artists, particularly Ann. He has an epiphany about the honesty and rationality of nakedness. Afterward, Carpenter tells him a young woman had arrived, seen him posing, and fled in shock.

Olympia later confronts Cricket, calling the scene “unseemly” and criticizing Carpenter’s group as anachronistic. After a week of apologizing for her harshness, she takes Cricket to a motel for what she calls a “project.” There, she has him undress and uses a marker to draw a grid over his entire body. She then kisses every single square, reframing the act as conceptual art before they have sex. The experience makes Cricket fantasize about a future where he and Olympia run a creative studio together.

In August 1990, Cricket and Jed arrive at Carpenter’s house to find him watching news of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. As the U.S. prepares a military response, it becomes likely that Jed’s ROTC unit will be deployed. Carpenter, who dodged the draft during the Korean War, urges Jed and Cricket to flee to Canada. Jed is conflicted, especially after receiving a rare call from his estranged father, who tells him he is proud to know that he will serve his country.

To distract from the anxiety of Jed’s deployment, Olympia organizes a campus art show for a visiting Bulgarian conceptual artist, Nedko Solakov. For the performance piece, Cricket and Jed continuously paint over each other’s work on the gallery walls, one in black and one in white, symbolizing the endless conflict over oil. The show is a local success. At its conclusion, Solakov tells the three friends they can be a powerful art movement, calling Olympia the “brain,” Cricket the “painter,” and Jed the “conscience.”

The Gulf War begins in January 1991. Despite Cricket and Olympia’s pleas for him to desert, Jed is deployed. Soon, Jed’s sister, Annabelle, informs Cricket that Jed is in Germany. The ground war is swift, ending after four days. A relieved Carpenter throws a party to celebrate.

A week later, Annabelle calls Cricket with destructive news: Jed was killed in a car accident in Kuwait after the fighting had ended. Cricket and Olympia go to tell Carpenter, who at first mistakes their visit for a surprise homecoming for Jed.

After leaving Carpenter, they go to Jed’s apartment to pack his belongings. The building superintendent shares a fond memory of Jed’s kindness. Inside, while sorting through his few possessions, they discover a notebook titled “I AM THE IDEA MASTER,” (218) filled with the creative art concepts Jed had started developing after the day of their visit to the art fair.

Filled with grief, Cricket begins painting a heroic portrait of Jed in his military uniform, intending to give it to Jed’s family. He works obsessively in Carpenter’s shed. His first attempt is a failure; Olympia’s silent reaction confirms it’s bad. He paints over it and tries again, but each new version feels wrong. Carpenter gently suggests the painting is a personal exercise for Cricket and that he should wait before trying to make a public tribute.

Ignoring the advice, Cricket finishes a version and, in his haste, wraps it in old Christmas paper and drives it to Jed’s family. He gives the painting to a hesitant Annabelle. The next morning, he drives by their house and sees the portrait in the garage, discarded and hastily re-wrapped. Crushed, Cricket retrieves the painting and drives to the Whistlestop.

He finds Roulin, who comforts him. Roulin insists on seeing the portrait and is deeply moved. Overjoyed to see a likeness of Jed, Roulin takes the painting inside, removes an old joke decoration, and hangs the portrait of Jed in its place. He tells his new employee that Jed was one of his two sons, and that Cricket, his other son, painted it for him.