Fay Grim

Written, directed, and produced by Hal Hartley. Starring Parker Posey, James Urbaniak, Jeff Goldblum, and Thomas Jay Ryan.

Magnolia Pictures - 2007

Two and A Half Stars of Review! ** 1/2

In a way its difficult to review Fay Grim without reflecting on its predecessor; 1997's Henry Fool. My reactions to both films are nearly identical. What I liked and disliked about both films are just about the same in nearly equal measure. To put it as best I can: I'm not saying that you shouldn't watch either film, but I'm also not saying that you should.

In Henry Fool we first lay eyes on the titular character as he walks up a deserted street. He is like a dark cloud rolling over the horizon, and his presence signals a sudden and perhaps ominous change. Henry is like some unshakable and perverse force of nature. A man who seems to both purify and poison everything around him. He is the type of guy you might admire from a distance, but would regret getting to know, and Fay Grim is the fulfillment of vague promises made about Henry's past.

Three years later the story focuses on the incarceration of Simon Grim; Fay's brother and the former “student” of Henry Fool. Simon has become a world renown poet under Henry's guidance, but was arrested for helping him escape the country after Henry killed a man in self defense. Fay is Henry's wife, and as things pick up she struggles to raise her son in the meager existence that Simon's royalties afford them.

Since Simon's trial Henry has become a legend due to his connection to Simon, and now every one is after Henry's “Confessions” - a series of note books in which he scribbled his corrupt teachings – including the Israelis, the Russians, the Turkish government, and an Islamic terrorist group; all who think that the books contain coded information that might pose a threat to the United States.

Enter Fullbright; a CIA agent who informs Fay that her husband is dead, and that retrieving these confessions is vital to national security. She is then shuttled to Paris in order recover two of Henry's notebooks on the contingency that her brother will be released from jail.

What follows is a series of double and triple crosses, murders, sexual encounters, and a host of characters that move in and out of the story with little regard to sense. There's a lot going on, and little attention paid to the finer details making it difficult to pin point how and why any of the characters make it from one place to another, but don't automatically assume that this isn't the intention.

In fact the whole thing feels like a 118 minute long smirk at the audiences expense. All but two shots are set at Dutch angles; an effect that gradually downgrades from nauseating to slightly less nauseating. The characters deliver their dialogue with maudlin disconnection as if they are reacting to events in a different film, and what little action there is generally takes place off screen.

Is this an exercise in style or a search for it? My feeling is that much like Henry Fool, Fay Grim is a film about everything and nothing at the same time. Inasmuch as it mocks absolutely everything while actually being about nothing. Henry Fool dared you to enjoy it, and Fay Grim is your punishment for doing so.

There is plenty of witty and intricate word play here, as well as some out of place crude humor which is worth a snigger or two, but it all wears out its welcome long before the closing credits . Perhaps that's the point. Maybe Hartley is playing a joke on any one pretentious enough to try and find meaning in it all or is that giving him too much credit?

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