REVIEW
A FOOL RUSHES IN
With its fascinating questions concerning art, manhood and morality, Hal Hartley's newest film, Henry Fool, is a unique masterpiece.

BY KIM MORGAN
243-2122 EXT. 342

Henry Fool
Rated R
Opens Friday,
July 31

 

A mysterious man arrives in black with only a suitcase and cigarette in hand. He barges into the basement apartment of a bitterly poor working-class family and casually takes up residence. Sitting next to the hearth--with its fiery glow highlighting his sweaty, unshaven and perversely idiosyncratic face--he bellows at his pathologically shy landlord, "Get up off your knees!" The uncomfortable man asks, "Where do you come from?"

A good question. Where does he come from? Is he from Heaven or Hell? Fiction or fact? Fable or melodrama?

He is from all of these places, and then some. But chiefly he is from the heated mind of director Hal Hartley, whose previous works (which include The Unbelievable Truth, Simple Men and Trust ) all dealt with broad terrain but never to the epic degree of his latest and most accomplished film, Henry Fool.

An ironic yet bittersweet statement on both the drudgery and surprises of American life and the questionable fermentation of literary genius, Hartley's movie is a rare bird among the independent film flock in that it asks painful and intriguing questions. In doing so, Hartley allows the viewer room to ponder his transcendent themes without providing easy answers. He also tells a wonderful story that is as tragic as it is comedic.

The picture begins with a terse introduction to a depressed family. Simon (James Urbaniak) is a garbage man who supports his sluttish, abrasive sister, Fay (Parker Posey), and his pill-popping mother (Maria Porter). Introverted and expressionless, he is the neighborhood punching bag who has been deemed retarded since birth. When Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan) arrives, Simon's lowly position changes with a drastic revelation. Convincing Simon that he must write down all of his thoughts (as Henry has with his "confession," a mysterious unfinished magnum opus), Henry gives the supposedly simple Simon a journal. In one feverish session at the kitchen table, Simon composes a work of such provocative beauty and profound power that, upon reading it, Henry urges him to publish--"To give it its due in the face of discouragement."

Leaked through the all-saturating Internet, Simon's prose-poem provokes a greatly hyped cultural debate. Considered by many either a work of "great lyrical beauty and ethical depth" or a pornographic, psychotic product of a writer "with a head full of sick ideas," Simon's work is oddly effective. It causes a mute woman to sing, Fay's period to begin a week and half early and one reader--so ravaged by its genius that she can no longer live with herself--to commit suicide. With all of the hoopla, the family changes and so does Henry, now a permanent fixture in the household. As Simon gains more respect and fame, Henry becomes more reprehensible and average--a horrible fate for a man convinced of his own genius.

Powered by both the actors' stellar performances and by Hartley's move to a more epic style, the film is a treasure trove of frequently perfect dialogue (Hartley sounds like a Gen-X David Mamet) and incongruent angles. Like Cal, the outcast brother played by James Dean in Elia Kazan's screen version of Steinbeck's East of Eden, the oddball Simon is almost always shot at a skewed angle. With his eyes looking downward through a pair of thick spectacles, he never gazes at the world head on. His head is always cocked. Like Cal, he is physically awkward, a cipher who loathes being visible to the bullies who repeatedly knock him down. His movements are animatronic, and his face, which bears a striking resemblance to Samuel Beckett's, is sharp and pinched.

Henry, however, is more the East of Eden brother Aaron, with some Charles Bukowski thrown in for good measure. Full of sweaty, self-proclaimed superiority that's decidedly duplicitous, he spouts lines like "I can't work for a living...my genius will be wasted" and "An honest man is always in trouble, Simon, remember that." At first Henry seems a poorly written Hartley character: stagy, pretentious and full of hip irony. Soon, however, we begin to understand Hartley's point: Henry speaks tripe because he's no Simon. Full of dime-store wisdom, he is like many "artists" in that he talks about himself a lot but rarely does anything.

Yet Henry accomplishes a few things. Not only does he lead, cultivate and empower Simon's genius, but he also catalyzes the movie's potent questions about both the political and personal consequences of art: Who is to judge what art actually is? How much is pure genius? How much is sweat? Is Henry truly a fool, or just a sad man who could improve? Is Simon really a genius?

We are never sure because we never see one line of Simon's poem. For all of the picture's carefully constructed epiphanies, there are as many enigmas. Working through near-subterfuge, Henry Fool is a passionate work, hilarious, moving and unpretentiously wise. It will resonate long after its finale into film history. As Henry tells a mortified Simon, who is lying in a tub of ice after his sister has thrown scalding water on him, his work is "pretty powerful stuff."

 

originally published July 29, 1998