Review of the Week: Late Fame

(15, 96 mins, in cinemas now)

"What defines success?" is a question that Late Fame doesn't quite ask, but still ponders through its affectionate depiction of a forgotten poet rediscovered by a new generation of would-be artists. Gorgeously shot under the wintry skies of New York, the third feature film from critic-turned-film-maker Kent Jones shows glimmers of Owen Kline's Funny Pages and Noah Baumbach's Mistress America and While We're Young in its softly satirical commentary on art, identity and contending outlooks on life.

Since publishing his only poetry collection, Way Past Go, in the 1970s, Ed Saxberger (a graceful Willem Dafoe) has been working for the US Postal Service and living alone in his SoHo apartment lined with overflowing bookshelves and furniture that probably weren't vintage when he purchased them. Returning home one day, Saxberger is approached by Meyers (Edmund Donovan), the self-appointed leader of the "Enthusiasm Society," the "sincerely ironic" name of a collective of wealthy students who are unironically striving to be the heirs to the Beat Generation.

Meyers is an enthusiastic admirer of Ed's poetry, having devoured a copy he found at Foyles on Charing Cross Road in London. Initially resistant to the young man's self-deprecating charms, Ed agrees to meet his group at a cafe. They show little interest in the old man until his name is uttered, then the barrage of inquiry begins. "You work at the post office … like Bukowski?" says Sherfey (Graham Campbell), before the youngest, Winn (Luca Padovan), asks Ed to "sum up his career touchstones and what that would amount to", before his mother picks him up.

It's a very amusing setup, one that Dafoe plays with gracious bemusement and the young actors imbue with a mix of earnestness and pretension. Here, the generational divide between these gen Z wannabes and this working-class boomer is crystal clear. They're nostalgic for an artistic movement they presume Ed was a central part of, get giddy when he mentions once meeting William S Burroughs, and lament the modern world of social media, influencers and technology. All the while they're on their iPhones, one of them is hooking up with an influencer he just mocked, and we later discover Meyers owns an Amazon Echo in the ostentatious loft apartment his parents paid for. They wear costumes of highbrow intellectualism, but under the surface are simply immature rich boys play-acting. 

Ed can't quite understand them, yet becomes intoxicated by the attention they give him. They want him to write a new poem for a literary salon they are putting on, but he hasn't written a word in decades. Ed usually spends his free time hanging out at a bar playing pool with his blue-collar friends, who have no idea he used to be something of a poet. Here, the dynamics begin to shift: Saxberger is no longer the shiny new penny but a tool for these young men to inflate their own artistic stature. Donovan especially excels, as Meyers's fanboy enthusiasm soon morphs into Svengali chicanery once he starts pushing Ed to write a memoir he could get credit for.

It's not the first time Dafoe has played an artist not truly recognised in his time: as Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate, he evoked a similar tender vulnerability. Here he flits between self-consciousness and assuredness, and moments of condescension toward his "lowbrow" pals, as the demand to deliver something new becomes ever more urgent. A subplot with his estranged sister seems superfluous to his journey of self, but the bond he forms with stage actor and cabaret singer Gloria – the older and sole female member of the Enthusiasm Society, played mesmerisingly by Greta Lee – adds a sweet dimension. She was the group's "flavour of the month" before Ed arrived – their eccentric muse who plays into the persona to mask deeper existential turmoil. I only wish the script had spent a little longer showing the real Gloria rather than the reflection of her in the eyes of these men.

Screenwriter Samy Burch, of May December and recent Coyote Vs Acme fame, adapted the film from Arthur Schnitzler's novella of the same name, published posthumously in 2014 but written circa 1894-95. That Late Fame is a century-old story that can resonate today shows just how timeless these generational conversations are. And why romanticising how the other half live or lived might not meet with as much success as living authentically as who you truly are.

Hanna Flint is a London-based critic, author and broadcaster of British-Tunisian heritage. She co-hosts the Fade To Black podcast and is a co-founder of Cinema for Gaza. Her debut book Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us, is available now.