Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, James Saito, Kevin Corrigan,
Chuck Montgomery
Director: Hal Hartley
Producer: Hal Hartley
Screenplay: Hal Hartley
Cinematography: Michael Spiller
Music: Hal Hartley
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Hal Hartley's latest, Henry Fool, which holds the distinction of having shown at both the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival and the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, is a remarkable motion picture. The movie weaves thought-provoking ideas into an engrossing story that, although somewhat unconventional, is likely to keep most viewers involved. Hartley's idiosyncratic style is very much in evidence, but it is subservient to the narrative and characters. One could argue that Henry Fool is the maverick director's most accomplished feature to date.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Henry Fool is its perspective of the age-old art versus morality debate. Because a poem presents certain ethically-reprehensible ideas, does that somehow reduce its artistic merit? The film is also smart enough to address the commercial side of this issue - how a controversy of this sort can make any property, regardless of its intrinsic value, a hot commodity. Henry Fool certainly isn't the first movie to address these subjects, but the story through which they are presented is anything but dry or familiar.
The name of the title character is obviously intended to be ironic, because Henry (newcomer Thomas Jay Ryan) is anything but a fool. He's cultured, educated, and erudite, not to mention somewhat taken with his own supposed brilliance. The other central figure, Simon Grim (James Urbaniak, also seen in The Sticky Fingers of Time), is an introverted, inexpressive garbage man, who, through a series of minor coincidences, becomes Henry's best friend. Henry sees something in the quiet, unsure man that others have missed (as a child, everyone thought he was "retarded"), and encourages Simon to put down his thoughts in writing. The result is a poem that fills up several composition books and is called everything from having "great lyrical beauty and ethical depth" to something that is scatological, pornographic, and the product of a writer "with a head full of sick ideas." Simon's poem becomes a lightning rod for controversy, and, when a few verses are placed on the Internet for everyone to read, publishers are suddenly clamoring to make a deal. Meanwhile, the mysterious Henry stands slightly in the background, carrying on an affair with both Simon's mother, Mary (Maria Porter), and his sister, Fay (ubiquitous indie star Parker Posey), while hoping that Simon's newfound popularity will somehow enable his own opus, The Confession, to be published.
In many ways, Simon's untitled poem functions as the film's Maguffin -- it's critical to all that transpires, and it is mentioned frequently, but we never hear a line of it. Hartley has a little fun with the way the poem affects different people: its power causes a mute woman to sing, it brings on Fay's period a week and a half early, and it drives one individual to commit suicide. People on both sides of the art vs. pornography debate react passionately, with free-thinkers like Camille Paglia gushing over the poem while right-wing politicians denounce it from their position of moral superiority. Hartley never gets too serious about this debate, preferring to keep the tone light and slightly satirical.
While there's nothing hidden or surprising about Simon, who is basically what he appears to be (a repressed garbageman with a gift), Henry remains something of an enigma. Like Simon, he is clearly gifted, but there's always a question of how much of what he says is empty rhetoric. He's terrible at commitment, refuses to get a nine-to-five job ("I can't work for a living... My genius will be wasted trying to make ends meet."), and is unable to do anything productive. He wastes time and sponges off of others, yet there's something magnetic about his personality. However, like almost all mysterious movie characters, Henry has at least one very damaging skeleton in his closet.
Hartley (Simple Men, Flirt) has designed Henry Fool to play like an offbeat, modern fable. Much of what happens in the film isn't believable in real-world terms. It's unlikely that Simon's poem, no matter how cutting-edge, would become so popular so quickly (Hartley's view of the Internet is particularly naïve), but that doesn't matter in the movie's context. All of the characters have arcs, there are a couple of diverting subplots, and the secondary theme -- about the value and importance of friendship -- provides for a satisfying, if over-the-top, conclusion.
As is always true of a Hartley film, one thing to savor about Henry Fool is the dialogue, which is often clever and frequently brilliant. The writer/director/producer casts actors who can speak their lines convincingly (that's why men like Bill Sage and Martin Donovan appear repeatedly in his productions) -- a category that Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Parker Posey fall into. It's great to hear characters say things like "You need to do something to be ashamed of every once in a while" and "I've been bad. Repeatedly." In the case of Henry Fool, the dialogue isn't the only thing -- it's the icing on the cake. This film is the complete package, and offers a thoroughly satisfying two-plus hours in a darkened theater.
© 1998 James Berardinelli