Guest of Cindy Sherman is a dense and fast-paced portrait of one man’s loss of innocence at the hands of his beloved –– at least, as far as “innocence” can be taken to be synonymous with “unpunctured ego”, and “beloved” can be taken to refer to the big bad art world in addition to, and perhaps ahead of, the famous photographer namechecked in the title. Co-directed by Tom Donahue and Paul H-O (shortened from Hasegawa-Overacker), the film trails the latter’s self-engineered insinuation (based on a formula of 2 parts brattiness, 1 part careerist ambition) into the social scene surrounding the Soho art scene of the 90s, which eventually took over his own social life when he began a five year romantic relationship with Sherman, which in turn absorbed his personal and professional identity.  The premise alone sounds too navel-gazing by half, but at its best Guest offers H-O’s story as a parable for the universal loss of self that every long-term relationship portends. The film also plays as a kind of easily digestible time capsule of several decades worth of contemporary art, tracking a move towards mass market mania and concurrent, undeniable bleeding of personal idiosyncrasy. Paul H-O enters the story as a party crasher; by the time he exits, it seems there’s no longer a party to crash.
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