Phillim Jason Schwartzman, Jonathan Pryce, Elisabeth Moss. Exquisite performers doing fine work, with novice writer/director Alex Ross Perry's rings-true, deeply hilarious, and often astonishing script.Schwartzman's 'Philip', blunt young novelist on the verge of stardom, overthinks and over-expresses his live-in relationship with successful photographer Moss, in a tone masterfully tragi-comic. Meanwhile he takes on an aging mentor in the form of overly-prolific writer and all-round monster Pryce. (Must have been great fun creating the dozen or more satirical fake titles and book covers for Pryce's ouvre. And choosing the curley-queue typeface from 1960s paperback covers for the credits -- suggesting Jacqueline Suzanne and Philip Roth -- warmed my little nostalgic heart.)Moss and Pryce bless the material with their usual raw, unvarnished truth. Pryce's holy terror is no hack movie villain -- he's the guy a lot of us know, admire, and dread. But Schwartzman -- ah, Monsieur Le Schwartzman -- is in a much better movie than the others. He is The Vortex, and when he is not on screen the film's purpose evaporates, like -- poof -- immediately. Perhaps luring the fabulous Elisabeth Moss to the project at the 2014 point in her brilliant career required giving her an extended Schwartzman-free segment. Moss is always fascinating and unrelentingly appealing -- but the material meanders in her 'separate life' sequence -- and it all starts to feel tacked on. Should have developed this as a separate splendid movie for Moss instead (I know -- easily said . . .).There may be structural problems with Alex Ross Perry's script, but his direction of the actors is inspired, and he has a true gift for casting. Location choices, framing choices, mise-en-scene stuff generally prove Perry's is the soul of an artist. Alex Perry knows what a movie is, the way Michael Powell knew, the way Douglas Sirk knew.Alas, the script/edit in the released film breaks a film lover's heart: at times it veers toward greatness, then heads toward what one hopes is mimetic satire of bad writing (appropriate in a story about anguished writers), but, oh dear, after a point we realize the film has lost its way, even though the smart, committed performances keep us engaged.The voice-over narration device creaks to the point of annoyance. Again, it is likely a satire of bad writing; it dawned on this humble reviewer too late that it is the voice of Schwartzman's character from his future as old embittered successful hack, relating the events of the film as reductive and clichéd memoir -- i.e., after he has aged into the Schwartzman counterpart of Pryce's dissipated beast. The tip-off is that the narration is not in Schwartzman's reedy voice, (nor Pryce's whiny growl, ruling his character out), but the seasoned baritone of Eric Bogosian. A lesser film would have spelled all this out for me in the beginning; a better film would have let me in on the joke a lot sooner.But the world is a better place for this film -- it shows us once again that Schwartzman is a thrillingly observant actor. I always feel he is revealing truths you won't learn anywhere else. Like an earthier version of the young Richard Dreyfus, he ruthlessly justifies every action of the -- mostly A-holes -- he plays. I think his best is yet to come.Overall I am compelled to give 'Listen Up, Philip' a ten for its many successes, its gadzooks! casting, its general ambition, and for its deep respect for the audience. Alex Ross Perry is a keeper.

lasttimeisaw Double bill time! US indie filmmaker Alex Ross Perry's two latest offerings, vary in their own strains, LISTEN UP PHILIP is a Woody Allen-esque drama-comedy and QUEEN OF EARTH probes into a more psycho-horror genre without resorting to cheap scare.The former, stars Schwartzman as the titular Philip Lewis Friedman, an up-and-coming novelist is on the cusp of publishing his second novel, but finds himself in contradictions with everything in his life. Wearing a seasonally-inappropriate jacket, a metaphor of his failure of accustoming his ever-distending ego to the reality, Philip waywardly puts a damper on the relationship with his live- in girlfriend of two years, Ashley (Moss), an aspiring photographer, after he accepts an open-end invitation from a venerable writer Ike Zimmerman (Pryce), whom he vastly admires, to stay with him in the latter's country house under the pretext of rendering a finishing touch to his upcoming novel.Cynical as me, an instantaneous question emerges, why Zimmerman wants to help Philip at the first place? Since what we have been imbued as far is that Philip is an objectionable egomaniac who may or may not have the potential to be a sterling writer, betrays his sexist stance and well- conceived jealousy as soon as he has the possibility to achieve something (Ashley has always been the breadwinner in their relationship). Cunningly the downside of Ike's seemingly comfy life bares itself, he needs Philip - not just as an impressionable young man to whom he can impart his wisdom, as much as Philip needs him, the tension between him and his daughter Melanie (Ritter), the writer's blocks and shrouding loneliness consume his strength, more pragmatically and pathetically he needs Philip to be his wing-man if he want to get laid with younger chicks. So, to answer my question, Ike sees himself in Philip, and Philip takes him as a role model, they share the same rotten DNAs. Great writers can inspire epiphany and confer wisdom to readers through their erudite thoughts and conception, one might think they (or at least the really estimable ones) would lead a sensible and judicious life, obviously Perry cannot second that.Introduced by an obtrusively wordy voice-over (Bogosian), continues like a running commentary rambling on the characters' pickles with unapologetic-ally pseudo-intellectual eloquence; shot with hand-held immediacy and close-ups a gogo, LISTEN UP PHILIP is at its worst being too quirky and conceited in its high-brow affectations, while at its best retaining an honest take on a real-life jerk's ups-and-downs, significantly owing to a well-chosen cast, Schwartzman is in his wheelhouse to be mercilessly arrogant and self-centered, which otherwise, accentuates Moss' visceral and layered performance which gratifyingly holds the ground in the finale, and Pryce has been allotted with munificent screen-time to establish Ike as someone whose remorse is as vague as his smugness.In QUEEN OF EARTH, Alex Ross Perry ventures into a more daring and unsettling territory, pairs Moss and Waterston as two life-long friends Catherine and Virginia, but intriguingly pivots around the mental deterioration of Catherine, who has not only recently loses her artist father (in suicide), not also in the opening sequences, breaks up with her longtime boyfriend James (Audley).Immediately the camera takes us to a lake house retreat, which is owned by Virginia's uncle. Catherine is invited by Virginia to stay with her there, to recuperate from the nadir. Then flashbacks and cutaways shows that one year earlier, before Catherine losing those two important men in her life, she and James had also spent their vacation with Virginia in the same place, and the atmosphere was not all that pleasant, the two girls were bickering all the time, throwing snide at each other, do they suppose to be besties?The tranquility doesn't quite work in favour of Catherine, who has no interest in swimming in the lake or jogging in the morning, as if she is struck by some strange lethargy, and the interaction between them is also not wholesome, constantly felt being watched by Virginia, Catherine tip-toes around when she is making phone-calls, their intimate conversations loses its momentum pretty quickly, although, nothing really happens, Catherine becomes increasingly watchful and retreats to herself, especially after the advent of Rich (Fugit), Virginia's man friend lives nearby, whom Catherine and James met also one years before.Imposing a more static strategy of framing, this time, Perry collectedly deploys natural sound (humming, droning, whirring, rustling) and an unsettlingly ambient score from DeWitt as major players in the game, together they suffuse the narrative as a haunting and mythifying undertone, fittingly trace out Catherine's paranoia and slide. After the sly (if not entirely unnecessary) implications of a murder (with a discombobulating cameo from Keith Poulson) and body horror (the pain in the face could lead to an apposite nightmarish scenario when the bones beneath are struggling for emergence), Catherine consummates her meltdown by giving Rich a mind-blowing dressing-down and later a creepy surrender-pleading-seduction combo to further throw herself down to the mental dysfunctional abyss. Moss is unbelievably versatile and emotive here, chilling, disquieting and unforgiving and Waterston proves herself a dab hand of deception and subtlety in her passive-aggressive retribution.That's when Perry cagily divulges the reason behind in the last snippet of flashback, if everything turns out to be a carefully planned revenge, could it justify the entire story? It's a tricky question, but one thing is for sure, QUEEN OF EARTH is a surprising oddity endeavors to fearlessly tap into the boundary and essential compositions of friendship between two (female) friends, and artfully construes its aftermath with a firm sleight-of-hand.

Ladiloque Boh While this film is certainly not for mainstream audiences it depicts fairly well a typical position modern intellectuals-writers put themselves into when they stop "listening", learning and growing up due to either success or failures.Only some illness can stop you from being smart, but being smart is not enough to live a fulfilling and authentic life. Especially when (what you believe is) your authentic self is actually the main obstacle to that, by aiming at systematically despise and mistrust the people around you.The first 10 minutes already may remind you (also for the main actor) some early Wes Anderson movies or some Woody Allen ones: if you like them, you'll - at least mildly - appreciate this too. This is the first movie from Perry I watch and I'll look forward to see others but as a first impression I'd like him to put his efforts in more genre oriented stuff: being smart is not enough to make a fulfilling movie too. The difficulties (or impossibility) in communicating between people shouldn't become a 2h film themselves or... none obviously will like it. Whatever his objectives in filming and showing us intelligence together with emptiness, loneliness and crisis, I'm sure he can accomplish them by writing a richer story behind them.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan Writer/director Alex Ross Perry doesn't have much of an ear for natural-sounding dialogue, which is a problem, since "Listen Up Philip" is practically all talk. Jason Schwartzman delivers his lines in a stilted, overprecise way, I guess to convince us that his character really is a "notable" writer and a serious intellectual; occasionally he seems to be channeling in Max Fischer from "Rushmore," but without the irony or humor.It seems to me that someone who writes such clunky, flatfooted prose (he misuses common words like "remiss" and "impart") hasn't earned the right to throw shade on a real writer like Philip Roth, and Jonathan Pryce, as Roth surrogate "Ike Zimmerman," has to struggle to put across some laughably stagy lines. The lowpoint is a cringy scene in which Ike and another alte kocker (who looks suspiciously like Bernard Malamud) pick up two younger women, bring them home and then have to call on Philip for backup. Kudos, on the other hand, to whoever mocked up the jackets for Zimmerman's books, which look exactly like Roth's bestsellers from the 60s… Elizabeth Moss lucked out—she doesn't have to play a nasty, longwinded narcissist, doesn't have to emote like she's reading random pages from a self-published novel (I'm talking about you, narrator Eric Bogosian!), and the few scenes she gets to herself are riveting. The pro reviewers were surprisingly indulgent with this one; maybe they were giving it credit for good intentions—seems like what Perry had in mind was something like "Llewyn Davis" (satirical character study of cranky guy trying to reconcile artistic ambitions with practical demands of life in 20th-century NYC) with a smidge of "Frances Ha" (lighthearted comedy of manners featuring arty Manhattanites, shot with shaky camera and other New Wave flourishes)—but, from our perspective, "Philip" doesn't have much to offer in the way of insight or enjoyment.Perry's new one is getting good notices at BAMcinemaFest; I'll prob'ly watch when it turns up on Netflix or Amazon. Fool me twice, shame on me