Movie Review: Willem Dafoe Gets A Second Chance at Minor Notoriety In Irritating “Late Fame”
3/12 ForReel Score | 1.5/5 Stars
Kent Jones’ fuddy-duddy drama Late Fame feels like a dreadful night out with some friend group that makes you regret moving to a new city. We’re baited with the prospect of seeing a lonely old man re-discover his passion for writing. Something that could bridge the divide between old and young literary types. Instead, it bleakly poses that there is no hope for connection or inspiration to be found in New York City. After all, attempting to make connections with others is pointless. You might as well just sit in your apartment and die while staring at a copy of your old book that was only read by people who are dead now.
Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
We meet former poet Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe) as he wastes away in a post office job. He’s got some bar buddies but beyond that, no life to speak of. That is until Meyers (Edmund Donovan), the snot nosed head of the “enthusiasm society” writing collective comes to his door hoping to recruit him. You see, this group of young bucks loved the book of poetry that Ed published in 1979. They hope to revive his career and in turn put themselves on the map, asking him to write a new piece to debut at a showcase. Things start to get complicated when aspiring actress Gloria (Greta Lee), the sole woman in the “enthusiasm society” who all of the boys drool over, takes a liking to Ed as she offers to perform his new poem.
Dafoe is doing charity work here, painting Ed as a loveable open-hearted man who we immediately want to see win. He’s not “cool” in the way these young snobs would like him to be but he’s trying his best. Ed is deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of writing anything new but every time he gets a bit of worship or praise, he cannot help but melt his guarded exterior and continue to assimilate into the gang. Unfortunately, that’s where any shred of good acting ends. Greta Lee is positively atrocious as a shallow clout chaser who posits herself as the Bette Davis of this group of posers. Sure, her lack of any genuine charm is part of the character, but Lee doesn’t even sell an intriguing facade. She is desperately overacting, even when the screenplay signals to us that she is letting her guard down to spend time with Ed one on one. Edmund Donovan is equally cartoonish as a so-called tastemaker who wants to forge a collective unencumbered by technology. He is instantly annoying enough to make us wonder why Ed would ever give him the time of day.
Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
There is no gradual realization of the lack of authenticity within this group. It is plain as day from the moment Ed meets with them at their little headquarters at a snooty bar. They’re no less arrogant than the clique of influencers that they thumb their noses at from across the room. Perhaps we’re meant to believe that they remind Ed of his peers from back in the day but that dissonance isn’t given any time. Perhaps we should’ve seen flashes of Ed’s younger years to see the similarities and differences between the two scenes, but that might require taking time away from watching Greta Lee perform the worst cabaret you’ve ever seen for ten minutes. It’s a film made to confirm the biases of old people with even more limited life experience than Ed.
Late Fame is the type of myopic dreck that fuels the general audiences stereotype of pretentious indie cinema. It’s hard to imagine anyone who isn’t an embittered NYU English major getting anything out of this story. It might’ve worked had the wider picture of Ed’s life been available to us so that we could understand his desperation on a deeper level, but instead he just looks like a fool. He’s also not a particularly talented poet. By the time we get to hear a portion of his work it’s just…nonsense. Back to the mailroom with you, Ed.