Fay Grim: Critic Reviews

The faux espionage plot, with its winks at terrorism, is really just a convoluted plea for the relevance of precious indie artistes (i.e., Hal Hartley).

Fay Grim gets so carried away with the intricacies of its plot that it gets lost in its own excessive cleverness.

Despite its imperfections, Fay Grim is worth seeing for Posey's and Goldblum's performances and particularly for the witty, literate dialogue.

Fay Grim sorely tests the tenacity of [Hal] Hartley's most zealous fans.

Fay Grim falls victim to its own worried hyperactivity; it shuts you out with chattery paranoia. Hartley wants us to see the big picture, but he forgets we need artists like him to bring it into focus.

With all manner of backstories and flashbacks jamming the road, the Posey-mobile starts to swerve and sputter and finally blows a tire.

Hartley's work has always been an acquired taste. While Fay Grim is too uneven to win him many converts, it is laced with enough intelligence and wit to remind longtime fans why they were drawn to his unique vision in the first place.

Fay Grim plays like a cadre of smug high-school drama students absolutely convinced everyone will be as amused by their antics as they are.

The final, tragically uncomprehending close-up of Posey is perfect in a way Hartley didn't intend. It mirrors our incomprehension at his loss of imagination.

What lures the film into disaster, is that [director] Hartley lets slip his sense of humor (always his strongest asset) and begins to believe his own plot.

Fay Grim is tortured in its attempt at cleverness, and plays endlessly.

Hal Hartley's Fay Grim strikes me as something of an elaborate mistake, a wasted opportunity and a script Hartley should have discarded. But I liked it anyway.

The involved backstory and Hartley's own generic music both prove burdensome; the main attraction is the cast's amusing way of handling Hartley's mannerist dialogue and conceits.

Where Henry Fool was a resonant study of friendship, art, trust and politics, Fay Grim is just a throwaway joke.

Part satire, part action flick and complete ball of confusion, it's hard to tell what director-writer Hal Hartley intends with this often-amateurish, often dull, always frustrating film.

Instead of growing as an artist, [Hartley] seems to be treading water.

Fay Grim is like watching stoners playing Risk and Clue at the same time.

Movie sequels rarely work as well as literary serials, but the Henry and Fay movies have the ring of a satisfying trilogy in the making.

Hartley is a man with a lot to say about what's going on in the world these days, and while the trademark irreverence is very much intact, his venture into a much broader, international landscape proves more admirable than rewarding.

This film feels like Hartley has been handed a Bourne or a Bond movie to direct and maintained his own style and low-budget aesthetic while thoroughly enjoying and deconstructing his new toy.

Shows Hartley shrinking even as he goes global

Slyly, almost imperceptibly comedic, Fay Grim is indeed a film by Hal Hartley, who wrote, directed, edited and scored the film. But it's also Parker Posey's film

Without a good quality story, all the eccentricity is just window dressing.

Hartley pretzels his faux spy plot into "Syriana"-like knots and ends up with a fascinating if somewhat flawed absurdist romp.