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The story of a poet who is rediscovered in later life could be tragic, it could be comic, it could be a feel good watch. Late Fame toys with all of these modes but declines to commit, delivering an unsentimental story anchored by a lived-in performance from Willem Dafoe.
He’s Edward Saxberger, a postal worker who leads a quiet life in contemporary New York. Shuffling home to his modest apartment, he is doorstepped by an ardent young admirer, Meyers (Edmund Donovan), who has stumbled upon a second-hand volume of Saxberger’s poetry, published decades earlier when he enjoyed modest success. Enchanted, Meyers has shared it with his poetry group, the Enthusiasm Society, who would love to meet the writer. Initially reluctant, Saxberger joins them for one of their meet-ups: it’s a far cry from the usual dive bar with his colleagues. As the society persuades him to prepare for a reading of his work, Saxberger’s head is turned by the prospect of late fame, but the reality may not live up to expectation.
Directed by Kent Jones (Diane), this is written by Samy Burch (May December), and based on a 19th century novella by Arthur Schnitzler, who also wrote the story on which Kubrick based Eyes Wide Shut. By transposing it to modern day New York, Burch gives his work a fresh spin, while retaining a suitably old-fashioned air: after all, this is about artists striving to recreate what they see as a more poetic era.
Willem Dafoe is an expert at playing this sort of enigmatic character
An expert at playing enigmatic characters, Dafoe subtly conveys Saxberger’s internal contradictions (ironically, he is a man of relatively few words). Meyers, meanwhile, speaks in deliberate, formal sentences, free of modern colloquialisms. He dresses like a beatnik – and yet, as we discover, Meyers lives in a big shiny penthouse on daddy’s dollar. There is comedy in the affectations of this group, but it’s not overplayed – Burch studies her characters largely without judgment.
One who can’t quite escape the story’s vintage origins is the Society’s solo female member, Gloria (Past Lives’s Greta Lee), a ‘tragic heroine’ who flirts outrageously in between dramatic proclamations and drunken meltdowns, while juggling a singing job in a piano bar. Naturally, Saxberger becomes fixated, though like him, we never really get to know her, despite strong work from Lee
Much like its hero, Late Fame drifts towards a conclusion rather than following a clear sense of purpose, but it does so with grace. Like the poetry, it’s sure to find an appreciative audience.
In UK and Ireland cinemas Sep 4.