This review was written for the festival screening of "Fay Grim".PARK CITY -- A story of literature, international intrigue and family loyalty, Hal Hartley's "Fay Grim" exists somewhere between The Marx Brothers and an espionage thriller. A sequel -- something rare in the indie world -- to his 1998 hit "Henry Fool", the film stars Parker Posey in the kind of strong and quirky role that has made her the darling of Sundance. This is definitely not a mainstream item, but it could attract an audience ready for something completely different.
A Hartley film is like an inside joke -- if you get it, it's funny; if not, you will probably come away scratching your head. His films are more about atmosphere, characters (usually eccentrics), snappy dialogue and outlandish plots. "Fay Grim" is no exception.
Since the first film eight years ago, Fay's idiot savant husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) has been on the lam from the law; her brother, Simon (James Urbaniak), a Nobel Prize-winning garbage man/poet from Woodside, Queens, N.Y., is incarcerated for helping Henry escape; and her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) has been expelled from school for bringing in pornography.
It turns out that Henry's handwritten confessional filling seven or eight notebooks, the subject of the first film, is really encoded revelations he wrote for the CIA. Threatening to unhinge the balance of power in the world, the notebooks become the subject of an international hunt ranging from New York to Paris to Istanbul and thrust Fay into the midst of terrorist activity.
Hartley obviously loves the Grim family and uses them as a prism to look at some of the mayhem in the world today. When CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) tricks Fay into going to Paris to retrieve Henry's papers, she learns quickly how to handle herself in dangerous situations. She is smart but unsophisticated -- a representative American -- and becomes the target for all sorts of feelings about the U.S. But much of the time, the characters seem more comical than threatening.
Among the people Fay encounters are a Russian flight attendant (Elina Lowensohn), who was Henry's lover, a beautiful British spy with a bum leg (Saffron Burrows) and a bumbling French operative (Harold Schrott). All roads lead to a real live Afghani terrorist (Anatole Taubman), Henry's best friend, who is keeping him in captivity, perhaps for his own good.
It doesn't all quite add up, and even Hartley admits there are some holes in the plot. He seems more interested in testing Fay in situations, watching her grow and teaching some life lessons along the way. Fortunately, Posey, who has worked with Hartley three times before, is an actress who can pull off this kind of material that borders on the absurd but has a deep reservoir of human emotion. In fact, the whole cast, headed by Goldblum, Urbaniak and Lowensohn, seems to be in on the joke.
Working in HD for the first time, Hartley brings some interesting off-kilter camera angles and stylistic touches to the film, like flashing words on the screen to spell out how Fay is putting ideas together in her head. On a small budget, cinematographer Sarah Cawley Cabiya makes international locations like the Bosphorous and Turkish streets look big.
"Fay Grim" is the kind of film you might not get at first (or ever), but the next morning you might find that something about it has embedded itself in your consciousness. That's Hartley's subversive sense of humor at work.
FAY GRIM
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This Is That and Zero Fiction, with the support of Mediaboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Screenwriter-director-editor: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim: James Urbaniak
Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas Jay Ryan
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A Hartley film is like an inside joke -- if you get it, it's funny; if not, you will probably come away scratching your head. His films are more about atmosphere, characters (usually eccentrics), snappy dialogue and outlandish plots. "Fay Grim" is no exception.
Since the first film eight years ago, Fay's idiot savant husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) has been on the lam from the law; her brother, Simon (James Urbaniak), a Nobel Prize-winning garbage man/poet from Woodside, Queens, N.Y., is incarcerated for helping Henry escape; and her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) has been expelled from school for bringing in pornography.
It turns out that Henry's handwritten confessional filling seven or eight notebooks, the subject of the first film, is really encoded revelations he wrote for the CIA. Threatening to unhinge the balance of power in the world, the notebooks become the subject of an international hunt ranging from New York to Paris to Istanbul and thrust Fay into the midst of terrorist activity.
Hartley obviously loves the Grim family and uses them as a prism to look at some of the mayhem in the world today. When CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) tricks Fay into going to Paris to retrieve Henry's papers, she learns quickly how to handle herself in dangerous situations. She is smart but unsophisticated -- a representative American -- and becomes the target for all sorts of feelings about the U.S. But much of the time, the characters seem more comical than threatening.
Among the people Fay encounters are a Russian flight attendant (Elina Lowensohn), who was Henry's lover, a beautiful British spy with a bum leg (Saffron Burrows) and a bumbling French operative (Harold Schrott). All roads lead to a real live Afghani terrorist (Anatole Taubman), Henry's best friend, who is keeping him in captivity, perhaps for his own good.
It doesn't all quite add up, and even Hartley admits there are some holes in the plot. He seems more interested in testing Fay in situations, watching her grow and teaching some life lessons along the way. Fortunately, Posey, who has worked with Hartley three times before, is an actress who can pull off this kind of material that borders on the absurd but has a deep reservoir of human emotion. In fact, the whole cast, headed by Goldblum, Urbaniak and Lowensohn, seems to be in on the joke.
Working in HD for the first time, Hartley brings some interesting off-kilter camera angles and stylistic touches to the film, like flashing words on the screen to spell out how Fay is putting ideas together in her head. On a small budget, cinematographer Sarah Cawley Cabiya makes international locations like the Bosphorous and Turkish streets look big.
"Fay Grim" is the kind of film you might not get at first (or ever), but the next morning you might find that something about it has embedded itself in your consciousness. That's Hartley's subversive sense of humor at work.
FAY GRIM
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This Is That and Zero Fiction, with the support of Mediaboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Screenwriter-director-editor: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim: James Urbaniak
Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas Jay Ryan
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/25/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY -- A story of literature, international intrigue and family loyalty, Hal Hartley's "Fay Grim" exists somewhere between the Marx Brothers and an espionage thriller. A sequel -- something rare in the indie world -- to his 1998 hit "Henry Fool", the film stars Parker Posey in the kind of strong and quirky role that has made her the darling of Sundance. This is definitely not a mainstream item, but it could attract an audience ready for something completely different.
A Hartley film is like an inside joke -- if you get it, it's funny; if not, you will probably come away scratching your head. His films are more about atmosphere, characters (usually eccentrics), snappy dialogue and outlandish plots. "Fay Grim" is no exception.
Since the first film eight years ago, Fay's idiot savant husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) has been on the lam from the law; her brother, Simon (James Urbaniak), a Nobel Prize-winning garbage man/poet from Woodside, Queens, N.Y., is incarcerated for helping Henry escape; and her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) has been expelled from school for bringing in pornography.
It turns out that Henry's handwritten confessional filling seven or eight notebooks, the subject of the first film, is really encoded revelations he wrote for the CIA. Threatening to unhinge the balance of power in the world, the notebooks become the subject of an international hunt ranging from New York to Paris to Istanbul and thrust Fay into the midst of terrorist activity.
Hartley obviously loves the Grim family and uses them as a prism to look at some of the mayhem in the world today. When CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) tricks Fay into going to Paris to retrieve Henry's papers, she learns quickly how to handle herself in dangerous situations. She is smart but unsophisticated -- a representative American -- and becomes the target for all sorts of feelings about the U.S. But much of the time, the characters seem more comical than threatening.
Among the people Fay encounters are a Russian flight attendant (Elina Lowensohn), who was Henry's lover, a beautiful British spy with a bum leg (Saffron Burrows) and a bumbling French operative (Harold Schrott). All roads lead to a real live Afghani terrorist (Anatole Taubman), Henry's best friend, who is keeping him in captivity, perhaps for his own good.
It doesn't all quite add up, and even Hartley admits there are some holes in the plot. He seems more interested in testing Fay in situations, watching her grow and teaching some life lessons along the way. Fortunately, Posey, who has worked with Hartley three times before, is an actress who can pull off this kind of material that borders on the absurd but has a deep reservoir of human emotion. In fact, the whole cast, headed by Goldblum, Urbaniak and Lowensohn, seems to be in on the joke.
Working in HD for the first time, Hartley brings some interesting off-kilter camera angles and stylistic touches to the film, like flashing words on the screen to spell out how Fay is putting ideas together in her head. On a small budget, cinematographer Sarah Cawley Cabiya makes international locations like the Bosphorous and Turkish streets look big.
"Fay Grim" is the kind of film you might not get at first (or ever), but the next morning you might find that something about it has embedded itself in your consciousness. That's Hartley's subversive sense of humor at work.
FAY GRIM
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This Is That and Zero Fiction, with the support of Mediaboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Screenwriter-director-editor: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim: James Urbaniak
Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas Jay Ryan
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A Hartley film is like an inside joke -- if you get it, it's funny; if not, you will probably come away scratching your head. His films are more about atmosphere, characters (usually eccentrics), snappy dialogue and outlandish plots. "Fay Grim" is no exception.
Since the first film eight years ago, Fay's idiot savant husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) has been on the lam from the law; her brother, Simon (James Urbaniak), a Nobel Prize-winning garbage man/poet from Woodside, Queens, N.Y., is incarcerated for helping Henry escape; and her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) has been expelled from school for bringing in pornography.
It turns out that Henry's handwritten confessional filling seven or eight notebooks, the subject of the first film, is really encoded revelations he wrote for the CIA. Threatening to unhinge the balance of power in the world, the notebooks become the subject of an international hunt ranging from New York to Paris to Istanbul and thrust Fay into the midst of terrorist activity.
Hartley obviously loves the Grim family and uses them as a prism to look at some of the mayhem in the world today. When CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) tricks Fay into going to Paris to retrieve Henry's papers, she learns quickly how to handle herself in dangerous situations. She is smart but unsophisticated -- a representative American -- and becomes the target for all sorts of feelings about the U.S. But much of the time, the characters seem more comical than threatening.
Among the people Fay encounters are a Russian flight attendant (Elina Lowensohn), who was Henry's lover, a beautiful British spy with a bum leg (Saffron Burrows) and a bumbling French operative (Harold Schrott). All roads lead to a real live Afghani terrorist (Anatole Taubman), Henry's best friend, who is keeping him in captivity, perhaps for his own good.
It doesn't all quite add up, and even Hartley admits there are some holes in the plot. He seems more interested in testing Fay in situations, watching her grow and teaching some life lessons along the way. Fortunately, Posey, who has worked with Hartley three times before, is an actress who can pull off this kind of material that borders on the absurd but has a deep reservoir of human emotion. In fact, the whole cast, headed by Goldblum, Urbaniak and Lowensohn, seems to be in on the joke.
Working in HD for the first time, Hartley brings some interesting off-kilter camera angles and stylistic touches to the film, like flashing words on the screen to spell out how Fay is putting ideas together in her head. On a small budget, cinematographer Sarah Cawley Cabiya makes international locations like the Bosphorous and Turkish streets look big.
"Fay Grim" is the kind of film you might not get at first (or ever), but the next morning you might find that something about it has embedded itself in your consciousness. That's Hartley's subversive sense of humor at work.
FAY GRIM
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This Is That and Zero Fiction, with the support of Mediaboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Screenwriter-director-editor: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim: James Urbaniak
Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas Jay Ryan
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/25/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Imagine a serio-comic Syriana and it would probably look and sound a lot like Fay Grim, Hal Hartley's wildly ambitious sequel to 1998's Henry Fool, widely regarded to be one of his best films.
Returning to those characters almost a decade later, Hartley is a man with a lot to say about what's going on in the world these days, and while the trademark irreverence is very much intact, his venture into a much broader, international landscape proves more admirable than rewarding.
Fans will undoubtedly still be up for the ride, ensuring that boxoffice-wise, the Magnolia Pictures release shouldn't be a grim reaper.
Where the previous film centered around Thomas J. Ryan's Henry Fool character, this one focuses on his abandoned wife, Fay Grim (a delightfully sassy Parker Posey), who's still living in Woodside, Queens, raising their son, Ned (Liam Aiken), who is now 14, and, she fears, on the same self-destructive path as his peripatetic dad.
Meanwhile her famed garbage man-poet brother Simon (James Urbaniak), has been serving 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting Henry's escape (after killing a nasty neighbor), and has had plenty of time to reflect on the true meaning of Henry's many volumes of his scrawled Confessions.
So has the CIA, which contends that the much sought-after notebooks contain information that seriously compromises the security of the United States.
That is why the calculating Agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) coerces Fay into traveling to Paris to retrieve the notebooks, leading to a wild goose chase that ends in Istanbul, where Fay ends up coming face to face with an infamous Afghan terrorist.
Hartley's kooky cosmopolitan caper can never be accused of slumming, but the shift from dry, offbeat wit to politically charged drama is a little jarring, to say the least; it's a bit like taking in Woody Allen's Annie Hall and having it morph mid-way through into Shadows and Fog.
But his cast handles the tonal fluctuations beautifully. Posey's got the quirky Hartley speech rhythms down cold, and between this and her appearance in Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration, which also screened at this year's Toronto Festival, she delivers an expert comic one-two punch.
Goldblum, Aiken and Hartley regular Elina Lowensohn, as a former stewardess who proves to be one of Fay's key contacts, are also terrific, while Sarah Cawley Cabiya's hi-def cinematography, with all those expressionistic fun house angles, neatly sets the off-balance, anything-can-happen stage for all that is to follow.
Fay Grim
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This is that and Zero Fiction wit the support of Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann
Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Editor: Hal Hartley
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Music: Hal Hartley.
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas J. Ryan
MPAA Rating: Not yet rated
Running time -- 118 minutes...
Returning to those characters almost a decade later, Hartley is a man with a lot to say about what's going on in the world these days, and while the trademark irreverence is very much intact, his venture into a much broader, international landscape proves more admirable than rewarding.
Fans will undoubtedly still be up for the ride, ensuring that boxoffice-wise, the Magnolia Pictures release shouldn't be a grim reaper.
Where the previous film centered around Thomas J. Ryan's Henry Fool character, this one focuses on his abandoned wife, Fay Grim (a delightfully sassy Parker Posey), who's still living in Woodside, Queens, raising their son, Ned (Liam Aiken), who is now 14, and, she fears, on the same self-destructive path as his peripatetic dad.
Meanwhile her famed garbage man-poet brother Simon (James Urbaniak), has been serving 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting Henry's escape (after killing a nasty neighbor), and has had plenty of time to reflect on the true meaning of Henry's many volumes of his scrawled Confessions.
So has the CIA, which contends that the much sought-after notebooks contain information that seriously compromises the security of the United States.
That is why the calculating Agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) coerces Fay into traveling to Paris to retrieve the notebooks, leading to a wild goose chase that ends in Istanbul, where Fay ends up coming face to face with an infamous Afghan terrorist.
Hartley's kooky cosmopolitan caper can never be accused of slumming, but the shift from dry, offbeat wit to politically charged drama is a little jarring, to say the least; it's a bit like taking in Woody Allen's Annie Hall and having it morph mid-way through into Shadows and Fog.
But his cast handles the tonal fluctuations beautifully. Posey's got the quirky Hartley speech rhythms down cold, and between this and her appearance in Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration, which also screened at this year's Toronto Festival, she delivers an expert comic one-two punch.
Goldblum, Aiken and Hartley regular Elina Lowensohn, as a former stewardess who proves to be one of Fay's key contacts, are also terrific, while Sarah Cawley Cabiya's hi-def cinematography, with all those expressionistic fun house angles, neatly sets the off-balance, anything-can-happen stage for all that is to follow.
Fay Grim
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films presents a Possible Films production in association with This is that and Zero Fiction wit the support of Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Hal Hartley
Producers: Hal Hartley, Michael S. Ryan, Martin Hagemann
Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente
Executive producers: Ted Hope, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Sarah Cawley Cabiya
Production designer: Richard Sylvarnes
Editor: Hal Hartley
Costume designers: Anette Guther, Daniela Selig
Music: Hal Hartley.
Cast:
Fay Grim: Parker Posey
Fulbright: Jeff Goldblum
Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) Juliet: Saffron Burrows
Ned Grim: Liam Aiken
Bebe: Elina Lowensohn
Carl Fogg: Leo Fitzpatrick
Angus James: Chuck Montgomery
Henry Fool: Thomas J. Ryan
MPAA Rating: Not yet rated
Running time -- 118 minutes...
- 9/15/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.