‘Fay’ takes familiar faces in different direction

Hal Hartley’s dark comedy “Henry Fool” was an indie masterpiece that effectively and accessibly meshed Hartley’s literary influences with his specific minimalist style and some of the most memorable characters of the last decade. Now, Hartley takes the characters he created for that world and launches them into a surprisingly different direction in “Fay Grim,” a worthy follow-up and rare art house sequel.

“Fool,” released in 1998, was a leap forward for Hartley, building on his quirkier early work and taking it to a more substantial place. Featuring stage actors James Urbaniak and Thomas Jay Ryan as Simon Grim and Henry Fool, respectively, the film turned on the awakening of garbage man Simon’s hidden poetic talents that bloomed under the urging of the Faustian drifter, Henry, whose lowly status and appearance belied his epic braggadocio. The Beckettesque duo, along with Parker Posey as Simon’s sister Fay, who becomes the title character in the new movie, gave physical life to Hartley’s complex and unabashedly intelligent characters.

When we last saw our antiheroes, Simon had won the Nobel Prize for his profane and controversial poetry, Henry had fled murder charges by allegedly going to Stockholm using Simon’s passport, and Fay was left with a young son after Henry had impregnated and married her seven years earlier. The handwritten, multipart opus Henry had been flouting, “The Confessions of Henry Fool,” was largely thought to be a horrible novel, literary excrement perpetuated by a vulgar man with a vivid imagination.

In “Fay Grim,” it is another seven years later and Henry’s still missing, Simon is in prison for abetting his escape and Fay is concerned that her 14-year-old son, Ned (Liam Aiken), is turning into his father. Fay is quickly dragged into a wild game of international espionage and the duality of her love-hate relationship with Henry re-emerges.

Posey gets to reprise one of her best roles, the deeply loyal Fay, whose faith drives this film. She may need a small “How to Pray” card in order to deliver a simple prayer, but she’s a strong woman, intensely protective of her family. Her love for Henry, despite the fact she is simultaneously repelled by his repugnancy and incorrigible behavior, enables her to go forward even while being completely in the dark as to what is happening around her. Hartley has described the character as a “representative well-intentioned American who is, however, ill-informed,” but Posey adds to her a stylish sexiness that makes her down-to-earth qualities even more attractive.

In a bold, cleverly executed move, Hartley has taken this character from the insular, emotionally claustrophobic environment of Woodside, Queens, and successfully migrated her, exploding her world to include Paris, Istanbul and points in between. A sophisticated, sometimes intentionally silly spy thriller of international intrigue, “Fay Grim” charts the history of American foreign policy while commenting on current global complications with wink and a nudge.

Mostly off-screen, Henry begins to take shape as a Zelig figure, popping up in all the political hot spots of the 1970s and ‘80s, leaving behind a cryptic trail in his writings that a whole lot of people would like to erase. That neither Henry nor the “Confessions” are what they appeared to be in “Henry Fool” only adds to the delights to be found in “Fay Grim.”

Action sequences accomplished with freeze-frames that look as if they were ripped from some avant-garde German fashion magazine form a stop-motion ballet, visually energizing the beautifully shot (by Sarah Cawley Cabiya) high-definition film. Askew camera angles fuel the fear, paranoia and surprisingly tense pace.

In an inspired bit of casting, Jeff Goldblum -- whose own stop-start delivery mixes well with Hartley’s trademark deadpan banter -- joins the party as a U.S. government agent who persuades Fay to travel to Europe to collect several missing volumes of Henry’s “Confessions” which have unexpectedly emerged. On the continent, Fay becomes a pinball pawn bouncing among a slew of foreign agents and assassins, including Saffron Burrows as a long-legged Israeli and Hartley regular Elina Lowensohn as a shadowy figure of dubious origin.

The films of Hartley have always been lyrical, full of harmonious touches ranging from the rhythm of his dialogue, and the quality of his visual compositions to the music he uses, often composed by the writer-director himself under the name Ned Rifle. They also often follow an almost absurdist formalism.

Although “Fay Grim” is clearly of a piece with his previous films, it marks new generic territory for the filmmaker. “Amateur” had aspects of the Hitchcockian thriller, but this film feels like Hartley has been handed a Bourne or a Bond movie to direct and maintained his own style and low-budget aesthetic while thoroughly enjoying and deconstructing his new toy.

kevin.crust@latimes.com

“Fay Grim.” MPAA rating: R for language and some sexuality. Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes. Exclusively at Landmark’s Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A. (310) 281-8223; and the Regency South Coast Village 3, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana, (714) 557-5701.