The Art of More

Rivalries between Graham and fellow auction-house exec Roxanna (Kate Bosworth) generate suspense and it's fun to learn the history behind auction items. [20/27 Nov 2015, p.103]

As the series proceeds, the scheming, criminality and even bloodshed that swirl around many of these objects and their acquisition becomes a mounting weight atop Graham and Roxanna in particular. Seeing the bad karma pile on is what makes The Art of More difficult to stop watching.

The casting is delicious, the characters and their stories grow more complex with each episode, and Graham and Roxanna find that you can’t serve the rich without becoming caught in the quicksand of greed. And you know how quicksand works. The harder you struggle against it, the farther it sucks you in.

The characters, including Graham, aren't always as unique, subtle or well-drawn as the works they're dealing in, but it's a world most of us know only from the occasional headline on an outsized sale, and the four episodes (of 10) I've seen left me wanting more of "More."

The Art of More is high on production values but low on basic believability with its discombobulated tale of two very amoral New York art auction houses.

The show undermines any authenticity it tries to create with a general lack of specificity in language, presentation and mise en scene. It doesn't help that the characters are so off-putting even the expensive items up for bid can't keep the show from feeling ugly.

Meanwhile, there’s Bosworth, throwing glacial glares and selling her soul to impress her father and compete with upstart Connor, giving a beautifully restrained, imminently watchable performance that conveys depths with very little. Too bad there’s not more of her and less of everything else.

The characters manage to get themselves into a lot of trouble, and the show is genuinely suspenseful at times, as shows will be when guns start to wave. But it's hard to care, even after having seen six out of 10 episodes, about anyone's fate. Neither their tales of early or current sorrows nor their displays of aesthetic sensibility nor even their expressions of shame quite balance out the fact that most are kind of bad people, mostly out for themselves.

The story lines never rise above network level, with a cast of one-note characters whose motivations, beyond greed, are left unplumbed. Quaid’s crude billionaire is paper thin, and so is another collector, an aristocratic Brit played by Cary Elwes.

A lackluster entry that's unessential viewing in this age of #PeakTV.

Its unique venue and recognizable names guarantee some interest, but with its underwhelming star, production values and storytelling ambition, Crackle's arrival in this marketplace teases More, but delivers less.

In too many places, the program is clumsily constructed, from Quaid’s scenery-chewing performance to Graham’s flirtation/budding romance with the big boss’s granddaughter (Savannah Basley), who’s also cutting her teeth at the auction house.