Henry Fool

I rented and watched "Henry Fool" last night and spent much of this evening tracking down reviews of this extraordinary film. I'm surprised that none of them invoked Dickens, or at least John Irving.

There's a constancy in Hartley films: beautiful photography, disciplined design, and (usually) extraordinarily attractive actors who mouth almost excruciatingly gassy dialogue in a deadpan style that seems to serve as ballast. "Henry Fool" is no different. But this film delves so deeply and sympathetically into the Big Issues -- love, obligation, and most of all ART -- that it delivers a wallop that reminds me of how I felt at the end of Irving's "Owen Meany". And I mean that as a high compliment.

"Henry Fool" is imperfect, at moments even ridiculous, but you just might be changed by it. Not bad for a movie.

I wasn't going to review this one, because I only watched/own these films because I'm an avid Goldblum fan. Yeah, I know he's not in Henry Fool, but he IS in Fay Grim, and because Fay Grim makes no sense WHATsoever without having first watched Henry Fool, I have them both.

Having started out that way, Henry Fool was, for me, something to "get through" in order to get to the "good stuff" with Jeff.

Boy, was I surprised. Henry Fool is a brilliant piece of work. I was shocked, frankly. Now, I can't stop telling my friends about it. This is thoughtful, even if it is a bit dialog-heavy. It is fun, even as it takes itself seriously. It appears superficially fun and quirky, even as it surreptitiously broadens its depth. It entertains, even as it teaches us to shoot for the stars.

Henry appears to follow his own advice - he appears to shoot for the stars, when all the while, he seems to be buying into his own con...or does he? This film is awesomely quirky, but there is substance beneath the idiosyncratic screenplay. This has become one of my new favorites. However, you can't fully appreciate the depth of the deceit without following this one up with a good strong dose of Fay Grim. Check it out, or lose out on a GREAT ending to this film.

I would recommend this for just about anyone who likes intrigues, livid dramas, and/or Parker Posey. I have to say this is one of her best performances. She's a NUT in this!

It rates an 8.4/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Hal Hartley is just too smart for most movie-goers. He's got a lot to say--and he actually makes his characters say ALL of it; in tiny, impotent little phrases that never astound so much as when you find yourself understanding something large about them.

And Henry Fool is a fount of these emerging insights: one test is not enough to know the heart of a would-be hero, one giant failure is not enough to know the soul of a would-be romantic, love isn't always as deep as it is strong, poetry comes and goes, art is in the understanding...

Despite dispensing so many ideas, Henry Fool has amazing comic timing, some high drama, a little sex, death, and even a romantic ending. Not enough comedy, drama, sex, death, and romance for a big box-office turnout; but just enough to make the Hartley fans want more.

Proof that famously idiosyncratic filmmaker Hal Hartley can expand the emotional and intellectual range of his often dismayingly bloodless work without compromising the skewed, life on the fringes vision that has built him a cult following. This resonant examination of friendship, fame, cultural trends, and the creative process, stars a garbage man and a mysterious bum. James Urbaniak is the socially challenged trash hauler -Simon Grim who lives with his severely depressed mother and slutty, acerbic sister in a cramped in Queens, N.Y. Thomas Jay Ryan is Henry Fool, the drinking drifter who moves into their basement, claiming to be a writer whose unpublished epic manuscript would shake of the world - if Henry ever allowed it to be published. (In fact he's talent free.) But it's Simon who becomes the literary star. Encouraged by his new friend, the trashman who never wrote before, turns out to be a natural poet, moving (and outraging) the public with the power of his words. The director packs a lot of tender heartache into the Grim household, and he presses his finger firmly on the bruised place in America where celebrity becomes its own curse. (In a great conceit, we never see of hear a word of Simon's masterpiece.) Hartley remains an acquired taste (for views with a lot of time to dine - this sitting runs about two hours and twenty minutes). But with "Henry Fool" he offers a lot to chew on.

Welcome to Hal Hartley's world of the disenfranchised. The focus here is on Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan), a passionate individual just released from prison after seven years, and one Simon Grimm (James Urbaniak), a simple garbageman with a seemingly apathetic view of the world in which he lives. Henry rents a room in Simon's house (which is occupied as well by his mother and sister) where he continues to work on his `confession,' the memoir he began in prison, which is actually a treatise on life that he believes will one day shake the world to it's very foundation. Expounding his passions to Simon, Henry urges him to cast off the shackles of his dreary existence and to express himself by writing down what he feels in the journal he gives him. Henry becomes the mentor, awakening something within Simon long dormant and as yet unrealized. Simon begins writing poetry, while at the same time we begin to see another side of Henry, a man unable to heed his own advice and whose quest for the life he seeks is too often derailed by his own indecisiveness and uncontrollable lusts. Ultimately, we realize that Henry and Simon are not so different from one another after all. Hartley's style bears a distinct signature, in that when his characters speak it is more than simply dialogue; it is small philosophies delivered in a mannered cadence that is engrossing and at times mesmerizing. The supporting cast includes Parker Posey (Simon's sister), Maria Porter, and one of the finest character actors spawned by independent film in recent years, Kevin Corrigan. In the final analysis, we realize that there is much more to `Henry Fool' than meets the eye. I rate this one 8/10.