OVERVIEW
What makes a writer, or any kind of artist, good? Is it the technical quality of their work, or how others engage with and evaluate it? Is a book’s lack of visibility a sign of artistic failure? These are some of the central questions in Late Fame, which follows Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), a once-aspiring poet and published author who now lives an ordinary life as a postal worker, spending his days sorting other people’s letters. His routine changes when Meyers (Edmund Donovan), an enthusiastic young writer, introduces himself as a fan of Saxberger’s book and brings him into the Enthusiasm Society, a group of young New York artists who treat him as an overlooked great poet. Their admiration shakes Ed out of his routine, challenging him to write poetry again while also drawing him toward Gloria (Greta Lee), an aspiring actress and singer in the group, and prompting him to reconsider the choices that shaped his life.
BACKGROUND
The film is adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s 1890s novella, which fittingly remained unpublished for more than a century before finally appearing in 2014. Screenwriter Samy Burch, coming off her Oscar-nominated work on May December, discovered the story in 2021 and relocated it from turn-of-the-century Vienna to contemporary New York, linking Saxberger’s artistic past to the city’s late-1970s and early-1980s bohemian scene. She wrote the adaptation with Kent Jones in mind, the former New York Film Festival director making his second fiction feature after Diane. Jones found a personal connection to the material after arriving in New York, and his own fiction career has been slow and small. He offered the part to Willem Dafoe two days after sitting next to him on a flight, where the actor shared his connection to the city’s 1970s artistic scene.
THE REVIEW
Jones’ connection to New York and its bohemian art scene is immediately clear when watching Late Fame, to the point that the film works better as a portrait of this artistic community than as a narrative exploring its themes, which remain loose and not always satisfying. There is a lot of care in how these characters talk, often through quick sentences that project a calculated intelligence, and in the spaces they occupy, from crowded salons to apartments filled with an unquestionable loneliness. It is such an internal portrait of New York that critics from the city will probably connect with the film considerably more than everyone else.
The film approaches this world through three different perspectives. Ed is the outsider looking at a younger generation seemingly full of passion, which gives him hope for this new chapter of his life without restoring the motivation he had when he used to write, even now that he finally has the admiration he once lacked. For the privileged young artists, the Enthusiasm Society is closer to a hobby, something that gives them purpose while allowing them to feel superior for rejecting the social media they believe has contaminated everyone else. Gloria occupies a more complicated position, carrying the sacrifices of someone still struggling to achieve her dreams, whether that means enduring abuse or constructing different personas for the people around her.
Together, these perspectives form a convincing picture of the city’s artistic scene, but they do not play equally well with each other narratively. As committed as Greta Lee and Willem Dafoe are, their scenes together never build the charge the film seems to expect from them. Gloria works well as a secondary character within the younger artists’ story, but less so as such an important part of Ed’s. Her prominence eventually takes attention away from what is more compelling: Ed trying to revive something he had decades ago. The film is at its best there, and often funny, as when he buys a single cigarette and is shocked by the price, or when his co-workers at the post office react to his sudden career shift. It is also where the writing turns academic, spelling out the parallel between fame and artistic drive at length after the point has already been made. A late twist, cohesive with the characters but working against the argument, undoes much of that discussion.
Dafoe has spent much of his career standing out in supporting roles, but it is always interesting to see a film built around him, and he creates much of Ed’s dramatic arc through small expressions. He is particularly good when the character finally confronts the expectations he has allowed himself to build. In a single look, Dafoe captures his anger toward the young artists and toward himself, along with the disappointment and hurt of that realization. It is a shame that the surrounding film does not keep up.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Late Fame has interesting ideas about fame and success for a writer, arguing that what makes an artist accomplished is the fulfillment they find in the work itself, something that cannot be easily fabricated. Yet despite a strong Willem Dafoe turn, the film never feels entirely assured of what it wants to say, throwing several ideas into an already loose narrative while getting caught up in the specificity of its New York scene. There is authenticity to all of it, but rarely enough to make it engaging.
Still courtesy of Vortex Media
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- 149Late Fame#149 of 219
- Where to watch
- Rent or buy at Apple TV Store, Amazon Video
- Where to watch
- Out of Theaters
Play trailer
- Original title
- Late Fame
- Director
- Kent Jones
- Cast
- Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, Edmund Donovan, Clay Singer, Arthur Langlie, Graham Campbell, Luca Padovan, Jake Lacy
- Rated
- NR
- Screenwriter
- Samy Burch
- Composer
- Don Fleming
- Cinematography
- Wyatt Garfield
- Editor
- Mike Selemon
- Country
- Language
- English
- Distributor (CA)
- Vortex Media