In Henry Fool (1998), a black comedy about creativity, publishing, and mentors, director Hal Hartley lampooned the complexities and weirdness of popular culture. This sequel to that story is filled with witty observations on the dangerous and mad world of international espionage, politics, and terrorism. To keep up with the fast-paced details of the plot will take some patience on the part of moviegoers but it is worth the effort — revealing the crazy and double-dealing state of contemporary affairs in America and around the world.
Seven years ago Fay Grim's (Parker Posey) unstable husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) fled New York after accidentally killing another man. Her brother Simon (James Urbaniak), a bestselling poet, was sent to prison for aiding his get-away. Fay is quite unhappy with the bizarre behavior of her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) who has been expelled from school. She worries that he is taking after his strange father.
Fay is living off the royalty checks from her brother's works. She is quite surprised when his publisher, Angus James (Chuck Montgomery), calls her into his office and tells her that he wants to publish her husband's magnum opus, titled Confessions. Then FBI agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) and his partner show up at her home with news that her husband is dead and two volumes of Confessions have turned up in the hands of French authorities. The FBI wants Fay to retrieve the manuscripts. She decides to go to Paris but only after Fulbright gets Simon released from prison.
Writer and director Hal Hartley uses this playful film to present a wacky overview of a world in which all governments are involved in nefarious deeds and untold treacheries as they seek power, influence, and wealth. As George Orwell pointed out a long time ago, the first thing to turn bad is language as war stands in for peace and falsehoods are sanctified as truth. In Fay Grim, Henry Fool is revealed to be a trickster who exposes the cunning and the rapacity of all countries in his encrypted Confessions. Fay's adventures take her from Paris to Istanbul where she encounters an amazing array of agents, wheeler-dealers, and terrorists.
