Dones’ Review: Henry Fool & Fay Grim
Cats: Movies|Yes, you get a double-dose of Dones’ Review this time–not because I’m feeling particularly generous, but because I can’t talk about one without the other…unfortunately.
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Henry Fool
Bottom Line: A polarizing, self-aware, really bad film.
I only saw this 1997 movie because I saw the trailer for its 2006 sequel, Fay Grim. I wanted to see Fay Grim based on the trailer, then found out about Henry Fool, which introduces the characters and relationships in the more recent film. I think it would have been better if I had skipped the first film altogether. We see an inspirational tale of a garbage man-turned-Nobel Laureate poet juxtaposed with a frustrated writer becoming a garbage man. Throw in some meaningless sex (and I mean it when I say that), scatological ‘humor’ and unnecessary nastiness (a man vomits onto a woman’s naked behind), and you know what Henry Fool is all about.
Let’s jump right into the ratings:
Production value: 1/5 stars. Independent films such as this don’t have production value, so I don’t think it’s off-base to give such a low score. It’s all dialogue, it’s all shot in a single neighborhood (with a couple exceptions), there is no star power aside from Parker Posey (who was only really known for her indie work when the film came out), and the makeup is poor. Some people like the way writer/director/composer/producer Hal Hartley shot this film, but I think the cinematography is generally as simultaneously banal and pretentious as the rest of the film…again, with a couple minor exceptions that probably took up the majority of Hartley’s creative energy to pull off. Don’t get me started on the acting…let’s just leave it at this: being an independent film is no excuse for bad acting.
Story: 1/5 stars. Ugh. Did I say banal and pretentious? Here’s an apropos line: “It’s a philosophy. A poetics. A politics, if you will. A literature of protest. A novel of ideas. A pornographic magazine of truly comic book proportions. It is, in the end, whatever the hell I want it to be. And when I’m through with it it’s going to blow a hole this wide straight through the world’s own idea of itself.” The title character is a writer, and he says this about his own writings, but it is really a synopsis of the film itself, as written by the film’s creator. The script goes on to describe the main characters’ poetry in exactly the terms that crossed my mind as I watched this drivel, while presciently including some ‘free-thinking’ audience members’ potential positive views about the characters’ writing, which stands for the film as a whole. The fact that people appreciate this film proves that there’s a market out there for anything. I suppose there may be such a thing as a bad movie fetish.
Enjoyability: 1/5 stars: What do you expect from my comments above? This film isn’t just bad–it knows it is bad (or, to be generous, it is aware of its own polarizing nature). If only it made fun of itself…but no, it just reveled in its own awfulness. The high points of decent writing and/or cinematography were unexceptional and rare, and were overshadowed by the atrociously bad acting on everyone’s part. I always blame universally bad acting in films on directors. What really got me was how unapologetic Hartley is about the film. I really do think he considers it a masterpiece. Honestly (albeit crudely), I simply consider it directorial masturbation on his part. And who wants to watch that?? He might as well go and star in his own version of Hamlet and be done with it.
Dones’ Rating: 
You have been warned: Skip this film, or pay the consequences.
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Fay Grim
Bottom Line: Not half bad. Check it out if you have nothing better to do.
I can’t exactly say I liked this one as much as I hated the other one, but it’s close. Take a group of ugly nobodys from the first film, put them in an over-the-top espionage adventure, and it actually works! Who would’ve thunk it?
Production value: 3/5 stars. It doesn’t hurt that this film got the backing of billionaire Mark Cuban’s HDNet in order to get a little more star power in Jeff Goldblum (who is unfortunately not at his best in this film) and Parker Posey–a little more well-known at this point, having now been in Blade: Trinity and Superman Returns, along with several notable Christopher Guest films. They also had the budget to shoot in four different countries, and they accomplish it all very well. The acting is still not great, but it is assumed now that Parker Posey’s character is just flaky, which provides a bit of an excuse for the bad direction…I suppose…
Story: 3.5/5 stars. Okay, part of the intriguing nature of this, erm, intrigue, is the fact that characters are already established in the previous film, and everything is now tossed on its head. Remember Henry Fool, the frustrated writer-turned-garbage man? Oh, you see, he was actually a now-deceased (?) CIA agent that had written his memoirs in a secret code. The memoirs have been seized by a foreign government, and the Agency (represented by the enjoyable but miscast Goldblum) now turns to Henry’s flaky widow Fay Grim (Posey) to retrieve them without creating an international incident. As things progress, Fay uncovers the secret about her husband and grows into a more sophisticated woman.
Enjoyability: 4/5 stars: You know, I just had a lot of fun watching this film. The genre switch was a welcome one, and I think Hartley did a pretty good job with the overall writing (it’s tough to write a cohesive spy flick, but he did it). However, it’s just not great: the dialogue and scene-by-scene direction was still crappy, and the music Hartley composed for himself kept getting in the way of the action and the dialogue, instead of simply complementing it. Who knows what surprises the next installment will hold? Maybe in another 10 years part three will come out as a lavish horror musical set in Las Vegas, and it’ll win the Best Picture academy award. Given the jump from Henry Fool to Fay Grim, anything is possible at this point.
Dones’ Rating: 
A decent spy flick, with quirks.
