HENRY FOOL (1997)

Proof that famously idiosyncratic filmmaker Hal Hartley can expand the emotional and intellectual range of his often dismayingly bloodless work without compromising the skewed, life-on-the-fringes vision that has built him a cult following: This resonant examination of friendship, fame, cultural trends, and the creative process stars a garbageman and a mysterious bum. James Urbaniak is the socially challenged trash hauler, Simon Grim, who lives with his severely depressed mother (Maria Porter) and slutty, acerbic sister (Parker Posey, giving a vigorous, sharply defined performance) in a cramped house in Queens, N.Y. Canadian stage actor Thomas Jay Ryan is Henry Fool, the drinking drifter who moves into their basement, claiming to be a writer whose unpublished epic manuscript would shake up the world -- if Henry ever allowed it to be published. (In fact, he's talent-free.)

But it's Simon who becomes the literary star. Encouraged by his new friend, the trashman who never wrote before turns out to be a natural poet, moving (and outraging) the public with the power of his words. The filmmaker packs a lot of tender heartache into the Grim household, and he presses his finger firmly on the bruised place in America where celebrity becomes its own curse. (In a great conceit, we never see or hear a word of Simon's masterpiece.) Hartley remains an acquired taste (for viewers with a lot of time to dine -- this sitting runs about two hours and 20 minutes). But with Henry Fool, he offers a lot to chew on.