Fay Grim - unabridged (sorry so tardy!)
A continuation of his 1997 opus Henry Fool, Fay Grim is a similarly off-center ode to love and human potential by indie-auteur Hal Hartley. Now following the story of abandoned wife Fay (brilliantly played by Parker Posey) the film begins in Queens and establishes the barely contained chaos that Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan) left when he abandoned Fay and their son Ned (Liam Aiken) seven years ago. What made Henry enigmatic in his film was the way he balanced failure and charisma. Fay Grim similarly revolves around this sort of inept genius: cultivated by circumstance and survived by surprise. Continuing in this universe where literature is powerful and love is tenuous, Hartley again explores the vastness and absurdity of life.
Fay lives off the royalties from her brother Simon’s (James Urbaniak) poetry. As a result of Simon’s success, Henry and his confessions have become legendary, and Simon’s publisher has interest in buying them. When FBI agent Fulbright tells Fay that not only is Henry dead but he’s a secret agent wanted by every major nation in the world, her disbelief is only temporary. She immediately rises to the occasion and negotiates Simon’s release from prison. For the release, Fay is assigned to retrieve two of Henry’s black and white notebooks from Paris, and from there she finds ways of fooling many agents from the most powerful nations of the world.
One never knows how fair it is to address the implications of a film or a premise. For example, it’s unquestionably poetic to look at the world of Fay Grim as one in which literature has clout, or to see Simon Grim as a prisoner-poet who’s star rises ineffably higher than could ever have been expected from him when he was a socially awkward garbage man. And isn’t that inherent capacity something that inspires audiences? Isn’t that part of why Hal Hartley’s films have culled such a following? When it comes to the work of an auteur (and I think I can use that word here) the meaning that rises from the text seems be a value that vibrates long after the film has ended. Some of us study, some of us live easily, some of us struggle in unfulfilling jobs for the sole purpose of survival, but all of us ultimately believe we’re capable of more. It’s like human inertia or something. We all believe we’ve got something tiny and powerful in us that can alter our fate or the fate of those around us. Maybe that’s soul; maybe that’s longing or desire, but whatever it is, Hartley is interested in it and so is most everyone else.