Fay Grim

Near to the very top of my list of the cinema’s most unnecessary and unfortunate sequels (right alongside the recently released 28 Weeks Later) is Fay Grim, a slick, fast-paced, and utterly charmless sequel to the 1998 indie classic Henry Fool. What’s doubly troubling about this one is that it had all the elements in place to duplicate the original’s brilliance: writer/director Hal Hartley was once more at the helm and the complete principal cast was back for more including Parker Posey as the titular heroine, James Urbaniak as her working class literary hero brother Simon, and Thomas Jay Ryan reprising, albeit briefly, the role of the mysterious and captivating Henry Fool. The novelty of seeing these three actors back in these roles, particularly Ryan who walked away with Hartley’s original 1998 masterpiece and remains atop my list of the most sadly underemployed talents in Hollywood, was more than enough to lure me back for a second round, but sadly this film pales tremendously in comparison to its predecessor.

First and foremost, Hartley opted for a truly bizarre switch in tone. Henry Fool was a compelling, low key meditation on celebrity, the creative process, and the emerging impact of the internet on the world of art. Fay Grim is a silly espionage thriller that just barely scratches the surface of a parody on the global paranoia over terrorism. After escaping the country with the aid of Simon, Henry Fool has gone missing and now the United States government is beginning to believe that his oft talked about “confession,” an 8 volume collection of pedantic self-important ramblings that not even a close friend like Simon would consider publishable is somehow related to national security and may hold the secrets of the C.I.A. along with nuclear missile locations and a number of other bogus contrivances used to motivate this loopy, nonsense plot. Of course, the best possible solution is somehow to recruit his wife Fay Grim in the government's search for the books and get her awkwardly involved in a C.I.A. mission that seems massively underplanned to say the very least.

Posey, ever more glamorous and self-aware than she was back in 1998 at the height of her indie “it girl” reign, truly botches this one. I’m as much a fan of the lovely comedienne that she’s become as I was of the prickly budding starlet she originally emerged as, but in Henry Fool she was such an effortless and oddly likable shrew and this time around she’s so daffy and obvious that she reads like a dreadful Parker Posey imitator. The genuine article could never be so flat and broad when faced with Hal Hartley’s rhythmical, offbeat minimalist dialogue. Could she? It’s not completely her fault, though. Hartley is way off his game on this one. Not only is the new spy genre twist bluntly and obnoxiously executed, but even the simplest conversation scenes seem to drone on and never really touch on anything significant. Woody Allen’s memorable movie theater queue soliloquy in Annie Hall may have forever dissuaded film critics from using the term “indulgent” lightly or incorrectly, but there’s no more applicable way to describe this one. Maybe Hal Hartley and his cast had a good time making this, but it was painful to watch. Even still, there is unquestionably some mild satisfaction in getting to see more of Fay, Simon, and Henry even in the poor shape that they’re in. Thomas Jay Ryan, after almost a decade, still embodies Henry Fool with the same perfect mix of genius, gluttony, and mischief as he did in his original performance. If only he had something important to say.

Grade: C