Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Kent Jones
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, Edmund Donovan, Jake Lacy, Tony Torn, Clark Johnson, Luca Padovan, Clay Singer
As Kubrick did with Eyes Wide Shut, director Kent Jones has taken a novella by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler and transposed it from Vienna to modern day Manhattan. It's a seamless transition. With its world of trust fund kids desperate to be seen to do something meaningful with their privilege, it could be mistaken for a work of Whit Stillman.
Plunged into this world is Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), an aging postal worker who moved to New York in the '70s and briefly flirted with the city's art scene. He published one collection of poems before leaving the world of bohemia. Now he sorts mail by day and hangs out at a local bar by night, though he quit drinking several years earlier. In the opening minutes Dafoe paints a picture of a man who seems outwardly content but inwardly restless. Ed fends off phone calls from his sister, who pleads with him to visit their dying brother. His refusal to engage with her demands suggests he has drawn a line in his past, across which he doesn't wish to be dragged back.
Ed's past unexpectedly catches up with him in the form of Meyers (Edmund Donovan), an NYU grad who discovered Ed's poetry and has tracked him down. Meyers leads a ramshackle group of wannabe writers who call themselves "The Enthusiasm Society," and he invites Ed along to one of their meetings. Ed initially declines the offer, but the appeal to his ego is too much to resist. Suddenly he is thrust into a world of fawning youngsters, with Meyers even getting him a meeting with a publisher (a hilarious cameo by Jake Lacy). Ed becomes convinced of his greatness and agrees to write some new material to be performed by Gloria (Greta Lee), an out of work actress who leads a fur coat and no knickers lifestyle of false glamour. Gloria's flirtatious attention certainly helps motivate Ed, but does he still have it? Did he ever have it? What even is "it"?
Late Fame is a dramedy cousin of comedies like Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood and the Tony Hancock vehicle The Rebel, in which everyday schmoes find themselves the unlikely toast of the art world. As with the visual art of those movies, the subject of Late Fame, poetry, is subjective. We don't hear any of Ed's work until the final minutes, so for much of the film we're left to wonder if he ever really had any talent. There is also the question of whether Meyers, Gloria et al genuinely understand and appreciate Ed's work, or if he simply serves as an icon to erect on an empty pedestal they've erected. Ginsberg is gone, so maybe Saxberger will do.
It's all too easy to mock any arts scene by portraying a bunch of pretentious rich kids who possess more money than talent. But that's not simply what Late Fame is doing here. Meyers and the other "poets" display no evidence of their own talents, but they convince Ed of his, and for all their pretentious airs and empty railing against society, their affection for Ed makes us empathise with how easily he becomes seduced by his new fan group. Rather than taking cheap shots at artists, Late Fame reminds us how difficult it is to create art in a modern world that values fame over talent. Gloria behaves like such a fraud that both Ed and the audience are taken aback when we witness her perform and realise that she possesses genuine talent. We're then immediately reminded of the grim realities of what an attractive struggling actress might have to resort to in order to pay rent in NYC.
Having been so bad in the recent Netflix original The Late House, Lee is a revelation here. Gloria arrives as a caricature of the sort of aging actress who might latch onto adoring young men like Meyers and his friends, but Lee's performance slowly strips away the layers of artifice to reveal a woman who like Ed, has spent years putting on a front. Ed is convinced that Gloria has fallen for him, believing her proclamations about his sex appeal as a rediscovered writer, but there is a suggestion that Gloria resents the attention that Ed is receiving.
Like Ed, we get so caught up in the warmth of Late Fame that it's a gut punch when the reality of the situation begins to dawn on both us and Ed. Having last written in the '70s, Ed struggles to put any words on the page, and the closer it gets to the deadline for a live performance, the less patience Meyers displays with his "rediscovery." That Meyers is unwilling to give Ed the time he needs tells us how much he truly values Ed as a poet, but it takes longer for Ed to join the dots because he wants to believe the smoke that these kids are blowing up his ass.
Ed becomes less loveable the more his ego is massaged, falling out with his co-worker friends because he now views them as philistines who never truly understood him. Anyone who went to college and suddenly found themselves surrounded by people who share your interests will understand how difficult it is to continue hanging out with friends around whom you could never truly be yourself. But we know that Ed's newfound "fame" will be fleeting, whereas his buddies will still be waiting for him at the local bar. While Ed's pride ultimately takes a beating, the ending leaves us with hope that in experiencing the commodification of art through a world of empty posers, Ed might now remember what inspired his work in the first place. From the snippet of his poetry we hear it's clear that Ed, like most poets, was inspired by the people around him and the emotions they stirred and toyed with. Unlike the fawning sycophants who seduced him into a false world, Ed's blue collar buddies are genuine, and maybe worth writing about.
Late Fame is in UK/ROI cinemas from September 4th.
