Fay Grim is the second of Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool films, set eight years after the first. It’s ambitious, dense and exhilarating - a challenge and a reward, puzzling and entertaining.
The cast of the 1997 original - Parker Posey, Thomas Jay Ryan, Liam Aiken and James Urbaniak – reunites to carry the fool’s tale further. From accidental murder, prison and a Nobel prize for poetry, to conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, and international terrorism. Big steps.
Henry Fool’s ex wife Fay Grim, the sister of jailed poet Simon Grim, is raising her son Ned (Aiken) by herself – although it’s mostly by telling him to ‘Scat!’, ‘Evaporate!’, ‘Get out of here’ - because Henry ran away.
Fay claims not to have loved Henry but her world crumbles when she learns he has died and again when she learns he did not die. And he may have been a secret double agent with ties to Middle East, South American and Eastern European terror cells.
So where is he? And what has become of eight handwritten books of Henry’s confessions, the encrypted log of his secret travels as an international arms runner, spy and double agent? Where did he go ten years ago, if he didn’t fly to Sweden? How dangerous are the books’ contents?
Jeff Goldblum leads a team of CIA officers in terror rout on Fay’s home. He interrogates her relentlessly, and it dawns on her that she may know more than she thinks. She decides to co-operate on condition that Simon be released from jail to look after Ned.
She has places to go. Books to find.
Parker Posey is a comic wizard, satirical, physically funny, subtle and clever. She gets to be all these things to great effect but shows us something new, a fierce dramatic gift. Her character undergoes a sea change, but her vivid performance has to be seen to be appreciated.
As the film progresses and she finds herself further from home and deeper in danger, Fay’s ditzy worldview shifts to warrior. It’s abundantly clear that she is in danger because her contacts are dropping like flies. Finally she feels her own strength rising.
I must say that Fay Grim has one of the strangest endings I’ve ever seen. Period. Can’t get it out of my head.
The cinematography is ambitious – hard angles and sweeping, without those annoying tight close-ups so popular today when a story has run out of gas, and its shot in gorgeous high definition.
Films that take you places – literally – are most appreciated. Fay Grim was shot on location in Berlin, Istanbul, New York and Paris, offering a rich tapestry of cultures and people.
We learn that the high stakes world of espionage affects everyone – from apartment dwellers in New York to terrorists holed up in a cave in Afghanistan to a Chechin stewardess/topless dancer trying to live another day.
Fay Grim
Opens: General release May 18. MPAA: Rated R for some sexuality and language
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