Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat is often at war with itself. At times, it effortlessly captures Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) and the Manhattan art world in which he flourished with bracing authenticity, only for it to become weighed down by biopic clichés that flatten out its characterizations. For every patient sequence that sits back and allows the audience to observe Basquiat at work, carefully detailing his process, there are two more that feel like they were ripped straight from the artist biopic playbook.

As great a song as Modern Lovers’s “Girlfriend” is, playing it over the scene in which Basquiat meets soon-to-be girlfriend Gina (Claire Forlani)—a composite of Basquiat’s real-life girlfriends, including Suzanne Mallouk and Madonna—is impossibly on the nose. And that scene is followed up by another in which Basquiat and his best friend, Benny (Benicio del Toro), see a character on TV utter what would...