The Color Wheel is a 2011 American independent film co-written, co-produced, edited, directed by and co-starring Alex Ross Perry.
A screwball black comedy, the film follows adult siblings J.R. (Altman) and Colin (Perry) as they undertake a road trip to move J.R.'s belongings out of the home of her former lover and college professor (Bob Byington).
JR is an aspiring news anchor and asks Colin to accompany her on a road trip to pick up her belongings from her ex-boyfriend, Neil Chadwick.
Colin begrudgingly agrees to help JR. During the trip they constantly bicker and argue with each other, revealing that JR's relationship with her parents is dysfunctional.
Director Alex Ross Perry first met Carlen Altman at a stand-up comedy show where both were performing.
"[8] Eric Kohn of Indiewire praised the film, writing that it was "a sheer delight of sarcasm and uneasy wit.
"[9] Writing in The Village Voice, Nick Pinkerton described The Color Wheel as "a movie that's consistently unafraid to get confrontational and plain weird, with Colin's is-it-or-isn't-it-ironic racism, abrupt smothering close-ups, and scenes pushed past the boundaries of plausible motivation until they nosedive into absurdity.
Like Howard Hawks's Twentieth Century, it's a travelogue movie about a couple whose impossible, porcupine personalities leave them safe, finally, for nobody's company but each other's.
The effect, at certain other times, is of a Which Way to the Front?-era Jerry-Lewis-written-and-starring incest comedy directed by Carnival Of Souls' Herk Harvey.
"[4] Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe similarly praised the film, writing: "There aren’t enough of these truly independent movies anymore.
"[13] A notable early champion[14] of the film was critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, who was the first to write about The Color Wheel during its festival run.
"[15] Reviewing the film in Variety, Ronnie Scheib wrote: "Hard to swallow but impossible to ignore, this nihilistic comedy may emerge as a cult touchstone.
"[18] David Fear of Time Out New York gave the film a negative review, writing that "Some will call The Color Wheel daring.
"[19] Even more negative was the review written by Ryan Brown for IonCinema.com, who stated: "The fact that the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York could recently sanctify its movie screens with epiphanic Bresson and Zulawski retros, only to smear them now with a full week’s run of this tripe only goes to demonstrate how haywire and scatterbrained 21st century film culture has become.