“Peter Hujar’s Day” (2025) adapts the Peter Hujar Estate approved transcript published on November 2, 2022. Writer Linda Rosenkrantz recorded an interview that she made on December 19, 1974 with the titular photographer about his yesterday, December 18, 1974. Actor Ben Whishaw plays the photographer, and actor Rebecca Hall plays the writer in director and writer Ira Sachs’ film that imagines how that day played out in Rosenkrantz’s apartment. Depending on how much context you need to stay interested in two friends, deep cut artists in Manhattan, talking about one of their days, it will either be a delight or a struggle. At home, it could be a challenge regardless of your inclination.
Brains make random, unfair associations all the time. Whenever I used to see Jai Courtney, I would get angry that he is not Michael Rosenbaum. On a good day, whenever I see Ben Whishaw, I’m disappointed that he is not Christopher Gorham, which is apples and oranges. I’m not even a big Gorham fan. On a bad day, he does not register at all, and I have seen him in a lot of work. It is me, not him. Well, Whishaw has made an impression now. As Hujar, he is a natural as a photographer thrilled at spending the day with someone that he likes, confiding the naughty bits of the day that he hides from others such as the embellishments and other social lubrication that keeps relationships, professional and personal, going and exhibiting an ease in navigating an apartment that is not his. For people unfamiliar with Whishaw, he is a Brit, but you would not know it watching this performance.
Another Brit, Hall is one of my favorite actors that I would watch in anything. Maybe I’m biased, but I thought her Bronx accent was shockingly good though nasal, which is not a compliment or detraction, just an observation. She has the harder part since she gets fewer lines, but her body language and timing with Whishaw felt organic. Honestly, she got me at, “It’s good” pronounced as one word when Hujar checks in to see if he is giving her friend what she is looking for.
Reaction to art tells a lot about a viewer. If someone is watching “Peter Hujar’s Day” expecting a traditional biopic, they are going to be severely disappointed and bored. It could easily be dismissed as nothing special that anyone could do if they wanted to, but the point is that no one else has. When people try to make something like it, if watching reality television, found footage or fake documentaries are any indicators, most attempts still feel fake, self-conscious and structured. The film promises a day in the life of a writer trying to understand how her photographer friend spends his day, and the movie delivers. Both are amazed at all the little things that make up that day that seem completely ordinary but are utterly special whether it is about famous or ordinary people. If you journal, this plot will be catnip to you, especially the menu of each meal, the number of cups of coffee, diet predilections. If a line delivery makes Pepperidge Farm or Oscar Meyer sound elite, Whishaw is doing something right.
Even if you are unfamiliar with the era, some names will stand out, but it is not about stars either, a point made in the film. It does not feel dishy though it could be to the right audience. It looks and feels as if it was the way that it happened. I left wanting to know if the apartment, which is multileveled, was like the real-life author’s home at the time. New Yorkers are obsessed with real estate. Did the filmmaker or Rosenkrantz determine the choreography of where to move in space? It feels like a time capsule.
More importantly, “Peter Hujar’s Day” could not be a play even though it is restricted within the confines of Rosenkrantz’s building, mostly her apartment but also the elevator and roof top. When Hujar decides to reveal the truth versus what he said, there are these sly edits instead of the contemporary conventional editing technique of a visible rewind like a VCR. It is a film. If you read about people complaining about how movies are too much like television and have no cinematic flair, that accusation cannot be made here. There is a scene where Hujar explains how he could not sleep and is looking outside his window while eavesdropping, and he is standing at a window as night descends. Also, the film quality looks as if it was shot in the Seventies. It is wild, and it looked like it did then.
Even with subtitles, the staging of lines is realistic, and nine minutes in, I lost a thread as the dialogue audio overlapped so if you have any auditory processing issues, this movie may not be for you. It is like a mental skip in the record that makes it feel like the story took a fork, and it may be too hard to get back on track. It will probably inspire many to buy the book just to scratch that itch. As someone who did not go into “Peter Hujar’s Day” with a lot of context, it took me awhile to get oriented. I’m the “look something up if you don’t know it” kind of person so the struggle during the first round of ignoring my instinct and just watching the movie was Herculean. When I finally indulged, I could finally enjoy it so lots of pausing and googling. Eventually I was able to stop and just go with the flow. If it helps, this film unfolds at the eve of Hujar’s name recognition and success, but it also has foreboding moments. Hujar is exhausted and claims his stomach is distended. Is it just normal wear and tear or the seeds of his eventual demise becoming visible as they grow? When Rosenkrantz talks about creeping signs of old age, or Hujar preferring work to socializing, it feels universal, but you must be able to focus to capture these golden relatable nuggets.
I tried to get a ticket to see it on the big screen at the Brattle Theater with the filmmaker himself, but the studio could only swing a screener. Then life intervened with an evening meeting to make sure that I did not take out my wallet and get in like the public. As someone who counts themselves as a person who enjoys dialogue heavy films, it was still difficult to focus before realizing that the thread got lost with some interruption or distraction, which is why the theater is essential for watching a film like this. For the at home viewer, either you will be fighting sleep or obligations even with a brief runtime of seventy-six minutes. If you want to use some anchoring techniques, here is what worked for me. I always take notes during movies but tried to watch it like a normie during the first round. I gave up after the first full round and started taking notes according to the time of day in his recap, names mentioned, noting the apartment layout and the exterior, the time of day on screen and mapping out the tangents. I’m uncertain how many times I actually played the screener, especially since the app counts the time paused as part of the runtime and will kick you out then count it as a new play, even if you are just resuming from the pause point, but when I felt ready to write, the app registered fifteen out of twenty times. My usual play count is one to two times. I appreciated the exercise.
