Henry Fool | Hal Hartley | 1997

Parker Posey

HENRY FOOL Hal Hartley, USA, 1997

Henry Fool, Hal Hartley, 1997

Seen (again) in 2023:

Henry Fool (Hal Hartley), 1997

Henry Fool Hal Hartley. 1997

Church 39-04 61st St, Woodside, NY 11377, USA See in map

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oh he thinks he's me. (Henry Fool (1997), dir. Hal Hartley)

NED RIFLE- 2014 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The third and final part of director Hal Hartleys Henry Fool Trilogy....

And its by far my favourite of the three.

Ned Rifle, the son of Henry Fool and Fay Grim is now grown up. Despite being deeply religious Ned sets out to kill Henry for ruining Fays life.

He starts by meeting up with Fays brother Simon who is trying to reinvent himself as a standup comedian.

"Am i not funny?"

This was a hilarious direction to go with Simon, he has been at points in Henry Fool and Fay Grim, quite uninteresting to me, but he really had me laughing, his comedy coach paid off.

While at Simons hotel, Ned meets Susan (Aubrey Plaza) who asks him to introduce her to Simon (shes his biggest fan and wants him to read a paper she wrote on him). We soon find out she has much deeper ties to there family and a secret plan of her own. Susan and Ned travel the country together searching for the infamous Henry Fool....

Very rare to have the third part of a trilogy be the best one but i think this really is. Its so much fun from start to finish, has a quick runtime and doesnt outstay its welcome.

Aubrey Plaza was excellent as Susan, she fits perfectly into this world, and had a really interesting backstory. Loved her in this. Her and Ned are the main focus of the film, with Simon and Fay in smaller roles and Henry having a big role only towards the end of the movie.

The running joke where Henry keeps seeing things as one of the side effects of the medical trial absolutely killed me every time it happened.

Love the tone of this film, an interesting combination of whacky comedy and drama.

Writer and director Hal Hartley describes these movies as "some kind of parallel neighborhood where I work out how the world feels to me"

The budget was around 400,000 dollars.

And Ned Rifle is also the next stop on PARKER POSEY PALOOZA!!!

Parker plays the previously mentioned Fay Grim who is now serving life in prison for treason. She only appears in a few scenes in the movie (she shot all her scenes in one day). Usually, id complain about her lack of screen time but i think she was used very well in the time we saw her. However, having Parker Posey and Aubrey Plaza in the same movie and not giving them a scene together is absolutely criminal. Theyre characters did interact before the movie though, (Susan is the ghostwriter for Fays biography).

Make a movie with Hal!

Hal Hartley, the kind, thoughtful creator of odd adventures (Henry Fool, Simple men, Trust, Surviving desire) is going for his second attempt at making Where to land (the first collided with the, you know, 2020 thing).

You can help out and you should. Go here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260302407/where-to-land-again

James Urbaniak and Thomas Jay Ryan in Henry Fool (Hal Hartley, 1997)

Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, James Saito, Kevin Corrigan, Liam Aiken, Miho Nikaido, Gene Ruffini, Nicholas Hope, Chuck Montgomery. Screenplay: Hal Hartley. Cinematography: Michael Spiller. Production design: Steve Rosenzweig. Film editing: Steve Hamilton. Music: Hal Hartley. 

In commenting on Hal Hartley's Henry Fool, I feel a little like those people who used to say about Woody Allen that they preferred his earlier, funnier movies. It's not entirely true, of course. Henry Fool is a great step in the right direction for Hartley, winning him the award for best screenplay at Cannes, earning him more mainstream attention than his previous films, and setting up an intriguing trilogy (which Hartley has said wasn't in his mind when he made what became its first installment). It's just that to move from the comparatively sedate world of mostly harmless and underachieving misfits to one in which the characters confess to crimes like statutory rape, get seriously beaten up, commit manslaughter, and win the Nobel Prize in Literature is a long stretch. As usual, much depends on how well the performers can bring the characters to something like life while still working within the distinctive parameters of Hartley's style. They succeed brilliantly in Henry Fool, with Thomas Jay Ryan playing the Mephistophelean title role to perfection, moving from slovenly to seductive with apparent ease. James Urbaniak's Simon Grim is the perfect patsy for Henry's manipulations as he rises from semi-literate garbage man to literary celebrity, taking the fall for Henry even as he triumphs. And as Fay Grim, Simon's slutty sister, Parker Posey manages to break free from Hartley's deadpan mode to be the best Parker Posey she can be, always a treat to watch. There's also the usual gallery of supporting characters who irrupt into the world out of Hartley's imaginings. Henry Fool has more satiric moments than Hartley's earlier films, taking shots at right wing politics and the publishing industry (which I suspect Hartley intends as a stand-in for the film industry). 

Caption mine. Image is from Henry Fool (1997).

Henry Fool | Hal Hartley | 1997

Diana Ruppe

HAL HARTLEY Henry Fool

FAY Have a drink.

FAY Do you find me attractive?

HENRY Yes.

FAY I look young for my age, don't I?

HENRY How old are you?

FAY How old do you think I am?

HENRY You look … young.

FAY How young?

HENRY I don't know. Young.

FAY But how young? Do I look more like 20 or, you know, 30?

HENRY Thirty.

FAY Listen, you geek. After a couple of drinks, plenty of people mistake me for 18.

"Well.

Here I am,

still,

after all."

He’s in stupid, unbearable love, and Henry loves him too.

Henry Fool Hal Hartley. 1997

Chinese supermarket 63-12 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, NY 11377, USA See in map

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this is my 5th rewatch of rwrb now (a round of applause for mental illness everybody!) and I still start howling with laughter when alex orders henry around being all “I’m going to do some very bad things to you” and pretending to shut the door on him when henry’s late, and then it’s like…. hm, so are these “bad things” in the room with us right now?

because what actually happens is that alex gets shoved onto a couch and receives some seriously impressive head LMAO like this man is ALLLL bark and NO bite