The great Willem Dafoe lends his delicate gravitas to the role of Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet who works in the post office. After an eager and flattering young admirer

(Edmund Donovan) appears on his doorstep, Saxberger is beckoned into a coterie of twentysomething admirers who anoint him as a rediscovered genius. Intoxicated by the

attention – and by the alluring presence of Gloria, the group’s ‘tragic heroine’ (a sinuous, Kurt Weill-crooning Greta Lee) – Saxberger gradually reckons with the authenticity of his

newfound poetic circle.

The Garden Cinema View:

Much like Willem Dafoe’s one-time West Village poet Saxberger, Late Fame has the feel of something from an earlier NYC art scene. This loose, hangdog-hangout film might isn’t as mannered as Jim Jarmusch, but has something of Tom DiCillo or Hal Hartley. Saxberger, a would be Frank O’Hara or Charles Bukowski (he works at the post office), finds himself ‘re-discovered’ by a precocious group of Soho rich kids: picture Whit Stillman’s ‘haut bourgeoisie’ if they read more William Carlos Williams.

Director Kent Jones teases some questions about authenticity (performative masculinity perhaps) and creativity out of this generation and wealth gap. But the key pleasures of Late Fame are found in the autumnal evocation of Lower Manhattan, and the performance from a perfectly cast Dafoe alongside a flamboyantly theatrical and melancholic Greta Lee .

Cast:
Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, Edmund Donovan