High Art, a slow, serious, and ultimately rewarding film due in Nashville theaters in coming weeks, not only manages to say something interesting about art but also finesses the question of quality in a disarming way. Syd (Radhu Mitchell), an assistant editor at a photography magazine, is trained in critical theory. So when she takes an interest in the photographs on her neighbor Lucy's bathroom wall, she praises them with a thesaurus-load of critical buzzwords about "intensity" and "immediacy." Syd believes the pictures are art because Lucy carefully chose composition, setting, and all the other photographer's variables; Lucy (Ally Sheedy) doesn't care if they're art, only that they represent her life. "Actually, I think that was a snapshot," she answers when Syd praises the casual qualities of an image.

Syd is drawn to Lucy's lack of ambition--she retired from the art-photography world 10 years ago--and the static, emotionless world of her circle of bohemian druggies, who include Lucy's girlfriend Greta (Patricia Clarkson), a former Fassbinder actress turned full-time addict. Lucy's life contrasts favorably to Syd's life as a magazine flunky with a fancy title and frustrated ambition. But when Syd persuades Lucy to create a spread for her magazine, she can't help bringing her working self, the one who takes deadlines seriously, into Lucy's world of found art. She is a willing partner in Lucy's seductive purposes, but their passion finally leads to an artistic achievement that Syd finds hard to reconcile with her professional persona.

Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko has crafted her plot well: The final revelations about Syd's character and the nature of art don't become clear until just before the credits roll. And her cast is uniformly excellent. Although the movie has attracted attention because of Sheedy's "comeback" role, the standout performance is Mitchell's. Her character suffers from a combination of eager youth and genuine good taste without an environment in which she can prove herself and mature as a critical thinker. Mitchell's inner conflicts enliven many a scene where to all outward appearances nothing is happening.

The one real flaw in Cholodenko's work is that a lot of scenes cry out to be so enlivened. Lucy had heroin chic before heroin chic was cool, and most of the movie takes place in a narcotic haze. Moments of ironic levity, provided by the snobbish editors in Syd's workplace, are few and far between. And as such, it's even possible to mistake High Art's solemn tone for a reverent attitude toward art and artists.

That would be a shame. Cholodenko understands that chaotic vitality and personality need to be recognized in, and as, art; she's in direct opposition to the movie's professionally managed, deadline-crunched arbiters of taste, who canonize collectibles, not creations. That High Art presents this dilemma in a solid, character-driven movie indicates that Lisa Cholodenko is herself an artist to watch.