Make Me Famous is an island in time that beautifully captures the desperate passion, artistry, delusion, and hedonism of the 1980s art scene in New York.

It feels like a kindred spirit to Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brother's masterpiece about aspiring folk musicians in Greenwich Village at the cusp of Bob Dylan's arrival. These are beautiful paintings and exciting works of art that will never see the same appreciation as other, often lesser works. That's just how things go, and it's heartbreaking.

I admit, I have a soft spot for the what-ifs and the never-was. Very few ever make it, so the history of the world is an ocean of almost, but not quite. I feel kinship to that desperation. The need to not just create something, but have it mean something to others.

It's fun seeing artists bicker about what constitutes as art. There's no circling of the wagons here. Instead, it's deliciously gossipy and revealing in the contradictory recollections and stories people tell. We get a sense it's one last chance for many to rewrite history in a way that's a touch more romantic and a whole lot more palatable.

The first 45 minutes are a breathless collection of memories and impeccably cultivated footage from the era. It is fascinating to see how New York has changed and gentrified in the decades since. Even more intriguing are the lives of those who survived. We get a sense of the camaraderie and love grown from a shared pain as these outsiders face a failing capitalist system and the growing AIDS epidemic.

At the heart of the story is Edward Brezinski, a neo expressionist painter we come to know through grainy home video footage and the memories held onto by friends. The image they paint is warm and acerbic, though not unkind. By the end, he feels like a familiar figure through the repeated gestures and vocal ticks his friends replicate. It's a work of great documentary film-making to paint a unified portrait like this, especially after all this time and pain.

Brezinski never made it big. He left behind a collection of work that is beautiful and haunting, yet he'll never be mentioned in the same breath as Haring or Basquiat. Whether that's fair or not is left up to the viewer. Brezinski's friends all have opinions of their own.

The documentary loses a bit of steam in the second half, where the focus narrows into a procedural of discovering what happened to Edward. While the dedication of his friends is deeply touching, I felt the tonal whiplash surprising. But by the time we reach the end of the road, I won't lie and say I wasn't moved.

This is the first film from Brian Vincent, and it's a wonderful debut. Vincent has a keen eye for deeply humane moments, and he rarely lets his hand show behind the camera. Only a few times did I feel the narrative leaning too heavily on the twee.

For the most part, Make Me Famous feels more like a conversation between friends in a chaotic and loud room. The party should have ended hours ago, but some still linger, because it might be the last time we're together like this ever again.