At first, Fay Grim seems like it's going to be a return to form for Hartley. This sequel to what, as of this writing, is his last good movie, Henry Fool, starts in an interesting fashion, showing the fallout from the previous film's end. The movie has the spare dialog, quirky performances and low key wit that distinguishes Hartley's best films.
I kind of like the idea of the sequel, which turns our perception of Henry upside down. The fact that Hartley has decided to create his sequel as an entirely different genre from the original is really pretty clever.
Unfortunately, Hartley is an uncomfortable genre director, as he proved in his odd "monster movie" No Such Thing. His take on the spy film is, like that movie, not much fun. The strange, disconnected dialog that works well when portraying people trying to cover up their emotional scars seems out of place in a movie in which people have to convey important information. There is more than one way to make a spy movie - look at Ian Fleming versus John Le Carre - but you can't do things in such a way that the audience is not only perplexed about what's going on, but even perplexed as to how the film's characters know what's going on. The story is so convoluted it could be considered a spy film parody if it were actually clever or wacky, but instead it just feels like Hartley doesn't understand the mechanics of a genre movie well enough to either make or satirize one.
Also, while I generally really like Parker Posey, I did not care for her performance in this; she seemed far too dumb in affect to play the role of the heroine. Thomas Jay Ryan, on the other hand, comes off the best in the film, and feels like a breath of fresh air when he appears. But he cannot save this film, and at this point I've begun to believe that no one can save Hartley from making bad, self indulgent, poorly conceived movies.
I kind of like the idea of the sequel, which turns our perception of Henry upside down. The fact that Hartley has decided to create his sequel as an entirely different genre from the original is really pretty clever.
Unfortunately, Hartley is an uncomfortable genre director, as he proved in his odd "monster movie" No Such Thing. His take on the spy film is, like that movie, not much fun. The strange, disconnected dialog that works well when portraying people trying to cover up their emotional scars seems out of place in a movie in which people have to convey important information. There is more than one way to make a spy movie - look at Ian Fleming versus John Le Carre - but you can't do things in such a way that the audience is not only perplexed about what's going on, but even perplexed as to how the film's characters know what's going on. The story is so convoluted it could be considered a spy film parody if it were actually clever or wacky, but instead it just feels like Hartley doesn't understand the mechanics of a genre movie well enough to either make or satirize one.
Also, while I generally really like Parker Posey, I did not care for her performance in this; she seemed far too dumb in affect to play the role of the heroine. Thomas Jay Ryan, on the other hand, comes off the best in the film, and feels like a breath of fresh air when he appears. But he cannot save this film, and at this point I've begun to believe that no one can save Hartley from making bad, self indulgent, poorly conceived movies.