Fay Grim

Eight years after her husband Henry Fool fled the country, Fay Grim is raising their teenage son Ned on her own while her brother Simon serves time for helping Henry escape. When the CIA approaches her, it is not with news that settles anything: the agent Fulbright claims Henry is dead, yet journals of his have surfaced in France, and the agency wants them. Fay agrees to travel to Paris and recover the papers in exchange for Simon's release, and the search soon turns into a journey across several countries, with more than one intelligence service watching her. What she finds suggests Henry may still be alive.

Hal Hartley wrote and directed the film, which followed Amateur (1994) in his filmography and precedes Ned Rifle (2015) and Where to Land (2025). Parker Posey returns as Fay, with Liam Aiken as Ned, James Urbaniak as Simon and Jeff Goldblum as Agent Fulbright, among a credited cast of twenty-eight. Hartley produced with Joana Vicente and Jason Kliot. Made for about two million dollars and running just under two hours, it mixes action, comedy and thriller elements.

Audience response sits in moderate territory: on IMDb it holds 6.1 out of 10 from roughly 5,200 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.6 from a much smaller sample of 88. A critics' rating of 5.8 from 91 reviews is close to the audience figures, indicating a generally mixed reception rather than a sharply divided one.