Main Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, James Saito, Kevin Corrigan, Liam Aiken, Veanne Cox, Jan Leslie Harding
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 140 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) is a garbageman, and his life is about as unpleasant and uneventful as you'd expect given his profession; he doesn't much care for his work, he's treated with violence or contempt by most of the people in his neighborhood, and he shares a house with Mary (Maria Porter), his cranky, pill-head mother, and Fay (Parker Posey), his morally suggestible sister. One day, Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) appears; he claims to be a writer in the midst of a major project, entitled "Confessions," and needs a place to stay. Henry ends up moving in with Simon and his family, where he wastes no time in bedding both Mary and Fay, and encourages Simon to write in a journal. Simon begins to write in long torrents of words that surprisingly fall together into iambic pentameter; Henry tells Simon that what he's writing is poetry, and he's truly gifted. Simon seems dubious at first, but when several of Simon's pieces are posted on the Internet, he developes a huge and rabid following and is acclaimed as one of the great authors of our time. Henry, however, isn't able to get anywhere with his own book or his own life; as Simon's star slowly rises, Henry's orbit slowly sinks past the horizon. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
After years of toiling in cult obscurity, independent film darling Hal Hartley scored a measure of mainstream acclaim with Henry Fool, an expansive meditation on art, subjectivity, pop culture, identity, and influence. This story of a garbage man inspired to write prize-winning poetry by a depraved, would-be philosopher bears the hallmarks of a characteristic Hartley film: mannered performances, stylized dialogue, precise compositions, and deadpan humor. What's unusual about this Hartley effort is the scale. Working on a larger canvas, Hartley inflates his typically self-contained world, crafting a narrative that spans years and that covers a dizzying array of disparate themes. Not all the riffs cohere into persuasive points, and the film's ambitious reach at times leaves certain thematic forays underexplored. Nonetheless, the surfeit of ideas is breathtaking, as is Hartley's mastery of an idiosyncratic, minimalist style. Anomalous as it sounds, this thoughtful and rigorous film is Hartley's epic. This film won the best screenplay award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Miho Nikaido - Gnoc Deng; Gene Riffini - Officer Bunuel; Nicholas Hope - Father Hawkes; Diana Ruppe - Amy; Chuck Montgomery - Angus; Paul Greco - Concierge
Credit
Jerome Brownstein - Associate Producer, Thierry Cagianut - Associate Producer, Jocelyn Joson - Costume Designer, Richard Greenberg - First Assistant Director, Hal Hartley - Director, Steve Hamilton - Editor, Larry Meistrich - Executive Producer, Keith Abell - Executive Producer, Daniel J. Victor - Executive Producer, Hal Hartley - Composer (Music Score), Steve Rosenzweig - Production Designer, Michael Spiller - Cinematographer, Hal Hartley - Producer, Daniel McIntosh - Sound/Sound Designer, Hal Hartley - Screenwriter, Richard Sylvarnes - Still Photographer
Socially inept garbageman Simon Grim is befriended by Henry Fool, a witty rogue, but untalented novelist. Henry opens the world of literature to Simon, who then writes "the great American poem.” As Simon begins his ascent to the dizzying heights of Nobel Prize-winning poet, Henry sinks to a life of drinking in low-life bars. Henry's own attempts at fame result only in rejection by the same publisher who contracts with Simon to distribute his work. The friends fall out and lose touch until Henry’s criminal past catches up with him and needs Simon’s help in fleeing the country.
A withdrawn Canadian $1 bill is on display at the cash in the convenience store, along with a second foreign banknote.
A passage from this movie is featured at the beginning of the Rise Against song "Reception Fades", from their debut album The Unraveling, released in 2001.
