If you think Henry Fool is one of the greatest characters in cinema history, you might (and I emphasize MIGHT) be able to tolerate Fay Grim. If you're unfamiliar with Henry Fool or are unimpressed with Hal Hartley's creation, watching this film would only be a waste of your time. This is an artless art house film where ostentatiously affectless performances parade through a willfully obtuse story. Fay Grim doesn't work on any level, except as a love letter to a movie most people have never seen which gets sidetracked into a limp wristed take on the politics of global terrorism.
Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is the wife of Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan). Ten years after her husband vanished, Fay is recruited by CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) to go to Paris and retrieve Henry's notebooks. A great deal of this film is consumed with various and sundry characters talking about those notebooks and then some other characters shoot each other over those notebooks. There are different ridiculous reasons offered up for why everyone is so interested in the writing of Henry Fool, all of which amount to pretentious twaddle. There are also a bunch of plot threads that either never go anywhere or never add up to anything, such as Fay's poet brother getting out of prison, Fay dating her brother's publisher and Henry's involvement with an undefined terrorist. There's also a pornographic Viewmaster and an ending so embarrassingly trite I hope Hartley was being sarcastic with it.
There's really not much more to say about this movie. The actors wade through Hartley's self reverential dialog as best they can, giving artificial performances that get about as close to genuine humanity as Jesse James can get to Sandra Bullock nowadays. Hartley's direction is competent, given the slack and lifeless script he wrote, but it's very mannered and feels quite dated.
Fay Grim is a movie made by and for people who think a sequel to Henry Fool is a big deal. If you are one of those people, you're welcome to this film. The rest of us have all got better things to do.
Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is the wife of Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan). Ten years after her husband vanished, Fay is recruited by CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) to go to Paris and retrieve Henry's notebooks. A great deal of this film is consumed with various and sundry characters talking about those notebooks and then some other characters shoot each other over those notebooks. There are different ridiculous reasons offered up for why everyone is so interested in the writing of Henry Fool, all of which amount to pretentious twaddle. There are also a bunch of plot threads that either never go anywhere or never add up to anything, such as Fay's poet brother getting out of prison, Fay dating her brother's publisher and Henry's involvement with an undefined terrorist. There's also a pornographic Viewmaster and an ending so embarrassingly trite I hope Hartley was being sarcastic with it.
There's really not much more to say about this movie. The actors wade through Hartley's self reverential dialog as best they can, giving artificial performances that get about as close to genuine humanity as Jesse James can get to Sandra Bullock nowadays. Hartley's direction is competent, given the slack and lifeless script he wrote, but it's very mannered and feels quite dated.
Fay Grim is a movie made by and for people who think a sequel to Henry Fool is a big deal. If you are one of those people, you're welcome to this film. The rest of us have all got better things to do.