"An honest man is always in trouble." This becomes a timberous theme, shadowing Fay throughout the sequel to "Henry Fool." Her character begins as a confused and tentative interviewee, being interrogated by heavy handed, pushy government ghost-types. Men with authority over her, the ability to cause her and her family harm, without disclosing their own motives and limits are leaning hard and fast on Fay. After a couple of conditions are met, she complies meekly. At least, for a while.

"Fay Grim" is as nicely convoluted as a triple loop roller coaster ride - keeps you off-guard and a little dizzy, but in a good way. The patter and phraseology reminded me somewhat of the cadence of a Mamet work. This played very well with Parker Posey's characterization, as well as that of Jeff Goldblum and James Urbaniak. In fact, Urbaniak, as Simon with the owl-glassed eyes, was superbly down-played as Fay's poet genius, stalwart brother. Henry's very brief appearances gave proof of his very big personality and, quite frankly induced me to queue up "Henry Fool" which I have been very reluctant to do.

Undoubtedly, this is a movie I will watch again. It is quirky, somewhat suspenseful, it makes one think. Certainly, as a result of Hartley's stylish acumen and finesse I will benefit from rewatching to catch other of his artistic strokes I will have missed the first time around.

Agents, spies, intrigue and espionage! A woman bumbling through this all to get to her man, who may not even be alive. By the time Fay is done, this butterfly bestirs ripples afar, you know.

This is a wanna-be film. It wants to be like the Coen Brothers, cutting-edge, etc, etc, etc. It just doesnt cut the mustard. It really is Grim. No one over seven will believe the plot or dialogue. It's Kaka disguised as chic. So what we have as an end result is chic kaka. Probably the worst film of that decade. Poor Jeff Goldblum; he used to be cool (Greenwich Village, anyone?); now he is just old.

I say 'I'd figure' in that line because, frankly, I've not seen a Hal Hartley movie until now. It's not that I haven't heard of him though, as he was seen as one of those small NY filmmakers (when I say small I mean even smaller than Jim Jarmusch),who made ultra-personal projects on limited budgets. In an ironic way, much as with Pasolini's Salo, though in a slightly different context, Fay Grim interests me to see some of Hartley's more acclaimed features, because there seems to be at least present some semblance of talent behind it, as if Hartley *could* be a very good filmmaker who may be so good he's just taken a big experimental blunder. Or, on the other hand, he could just be someone far too impressed with his own idiosyncrasies and would-be Godard-like cinematic collisions.

I can't quite explain the story, which may or may not be a problem I suppose, however it's not really in due to not having seen the film that preceded Fay Grim, Henry Fool. I think even if I had that experience it wouldn't make too much of a difference based on the final results. There's a lot of international espionage, a double plot wrapped inside of another that's fallen through the fake pockets of the title character, played in an aloof way by Parker Posey (not sure if that's good or bad either, maybe both),and also involving a CIA operative (Jeff Goldblum, as usual a solid presence amid the mania, even conjuring some laughs),not to mention an orgy-laden picture box, and author Henry Fool. It's not that the script is totally impenetrable, however much it goes into over-extended loopholes just for the sake of it, because there are some touches of witty or affectingly strange dialog.

Quite simply, the direction just sucks. Harltey is in love with the Third Man, which is fine, but he imposes a consistently headache inducing style of everything being tilted in angle, with characters having to get into frame equally oddly. Not since Battlefield Earth, in fact, has a director come off so annoyingly in trying to make the unnecessary choice of titled angles for some bizarre dramatic effect, only this time Hartley isn't amid a cluster-f***, he's mostly responsible for it. This, along with the crazy wannabe Godard title-cards that pop in here and there, some a little amusing and some just totally stupid, and the montage segments all in still shots, AND a couple of moments involving action that almost call to mind Ed Wood, undermine any of the potential that is in the script, which is already fairly hard to decipher. In a way, it's fascinating to watch how bad this all goes, but a kind of fascination that comes in seeing the flip-side to total creative control on a sort-of small-scale story.

But let it be known: you'll likely not come across a more wretchedly pretentious example of American independent film-making this year.