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Fay Grim (2007) DVD Review
Fay Grim (2007) DVD Credits:
Fay Grim (2007) Directed by:
Hal Hartley
Fay Grim (2007) Written by:
Hal Hartley
Fay Grim (2007) Cast:
Parker Posey, Jeff Goldblum, Thomas Jay Ryan, Saffron Burrows, D.J. Mendel, Liam Aiken, Megan Gay, Leo Fitzpatrick, Jasmin Tabatabai, Chuck Montgomery, James Urbaniak
Fay Grim (2007) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Fay Grim (2007) DVD Release Date:
21st May 2007
Our Rating: Extras Rating:

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Fay Grim (2007) Synopsis:

Hal Hartley continues the story he began in "Henry Fool" ten years after, as Fay Grim (Posey) is coerced by a CIA agent (Goldblum) to try and locate notebooks that belonged to her fugitive ex-husband (Ryan). Published in them is information that could compromise the security of the U.S., causing Fay to first head to Paris to fetch them.

Fay Grim (2007) DVD Review:

“Fay Grim” is auteur Hal Hartley’s desperate attempt to recapture the success of “Henry Fool” through the guise of a thriller. The film nestles itself comfortably in Hartley’s affected indie-verse while also featuring a strange amalgamation of international intrigue and American pseudo-politics. Similar to last year’s (horrible) Steven Soderbergh “experiment” known —and just as quickly forgotten— as “Bubble,” HDNet films has released “Fay Grim” in theaters and on DVD a week apart. This is an admirable goal, one that may go down in film history books, but I can only hope that one day this pioneering production company will release something we actually want to see in theaters and/or on DVD. In its current state, you could offer me this film for free and I would have to think twice before touching it.

I would be tempted to call “Fay Grim” a straight-to-DVD quality feature but that would do a disservice to all those Steven Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme espionage films out there. As an obtusely written (I’ve always been a critic of Hartley’s dialogue) and directed (instead of blocking Hartley has his characters strike theatrical poses and there are more Dutch angels here than a drunken Terry Gilliam photo rampage) follow-up, this film makes “Henry Fool” look like “Henry Genus.” The BS reality evoked by the larger-than-life Henry in that charming, small town tale comes to life… in a film that couldn’t be more dead.

The film follows “Henry Fool’s” Fay Grim (an overextended Parker Poser, I mean Posey) as Henry’s ex-wife, burned by his mysterious ways but still pining after the slovenly cad. The plot is centered around Henry’s confessional manuscripts from the first film, but instead of an emotional launching point, the pages in Henry’s books are now loaded with McGuffin-y goodness—“Henry is larger than life now, and his confession’s a desperately sought after commodity now. The time to strike is NOW! We have GOT to get our hands on those books!” It has never been a stretch for Hartley to add touches of action and surreal fantasy to his films (the awful “Amateur” and sci-fi comedy “The Girl From Monday” come to mind) and as this “Grim” tale it is certainly no exception. But the film is too proud of its absurd twists, “Third Man”-thrills and sophomoric thesis on international politics to work as anything beyond a bemused exercise in low budget intrigue—“Henry Grim” feels more like a bunch of cocky kids playing espionage dress up in their mom’s bedroom. As characters begin to realize that Fay has been “rubbed into some sort of international espionage” conspiracy where Fool’s “psychological terrorism” is ruining her life, the fact that they must tell us as much gets under my skin. Everything in this film, right down to the plucky violin strings and persistent piano clangs in Hartley’s own musical score (the man ruins everything he touches!) is way to direct for my liking.

Playing an instigating Federal agent, Jeff Goldblum is, at least, somewhat refreshing as he checks in with Fay from time to time to cajole her into tracking the super-secret manuscript and whereabouts of Henry Lime, uh, I mean Fool. Check out the actor’s flippant reaction to a bomb threat to see how Goldblum is able to coast above the fap-happy material with a non-natural style that, somehow, partners up well with Hartley’s even less natural material. The same cannot be said of any other struggling performer in the film. Reprising another major role in Henry Fool, the film also stars an underused James Urbaniak as Simon, Fay’s brother who read the manuscript years ago but never believed its insane flights of fancy… until now! Urbaniak gets nothing from love from me these days due to the fact that he voices Dr. Venture on the Adult Swim show “Venture Brothers” but this film is testing my good will. Urbaniak’s sharp verbal tenses are rendered moot under the manic (and meaningless) plot and unlike the splendidly offbeat rhythms of “Venture,” Hartley has a way of making fast dialogue sound flat and contrived. This may be exactly what Hartley is going for but, so what, there are ways to be artificial and still be compelling (check out “Inland Empire” to see what I mean).

The film is worth a look to “Henry Fool” fans for its daring concept. Unlike that film (the only good one to the man’s name), though, “Fay Grim” burns out in a spectacular display of a director’s near sited indulgences, but at least it gave me the opportunity to watch “Henry Fool” again in a new light. One in which Henry Fool is a visionary rather than some slacker nomad. For that, and that alone, “Fay Grim” is worth seeing. In all other respects —and to paraphrase the great Mr. T— I pity the Fool.

The DVD
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Features:
The Making of Fay Grim—Enough insightful interview footage to make this feature better than the actual film. Finally, the people in front of and behind “Fay Grim” are being real with us. As Hartley compares the film to “Henry Fool” and discusses how Fay is the “representative American” who is “unaware of how the world works,” I found myself wishing he could have made a sequel worthy of its bold concept.
Higher Definition: Fay Grim Episode—An episode from the HDNet channel show featuring Hartley and the cast. Not especially insightful if you’ve seen “The Making of Fay Grim” but worth it because we get to hear Hal Hartley call this sequel his “Empire Strikes Back” and compare Posey to Luke Skywalker. HA!
Deleted Scenes—We get two excised micro scenes here. One useless deleted scenes features Fay trying to pray but not knowing how (ha, ha) and the other, well, I saw earlier today but completely forgot so it can’t be that good, right? Being that the film is 118-minutes going on eternity, the only thing worse than two hours of Fay Grim is a version that’s two hours and one minute.

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Fay Grim (2007) DVD review written by: Greg Douglass

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