Willem Dafoe & Greta Lee Are So Good in ‘Late Fame’

Vulture First Reviewed Lace be premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2025. WE ARE REPORT THE REVIEW THAT THAT IT’S PLAYING AT THE NEW YORK FILM FILM.

“You must have been benutophul well you were Young,” Greta Lee Says to Willem Dafoe at One Point in Kent Jones’s Laceand for those of us who well remember the actor younger years-back when his scinu was porcelain, his cheekbones Sea-Cliff Sharp, and hisyes so angelically haunted-iT”s hard not to shout “Amen!” Back at the screen. First, the line hits because it works with the context of the film: Ed saxburger (Dafoe) is a postal workrier who in his published a well-regarded but little-reed book of poems, and he’s in the midst of funds (and melanchily) recaling all of the promise of the promise Years in New York, when Poetry was in the Air, “Downtown was another world, and soho was like on the moon.” But it also helps the Movie Reach Beyond the Screen; Some of the US Might Begin to Share Saxburger’s Reveries Along With Our Own.

The Line Also Suggests That Lee’s Gloria Gardner, A Downtown Actress with an aura of Mystery to Her, Appreciates Saxburger in this moment not for who is, but for who and the world and the world and the world. (Though, Let’s Face It: Dafoe Still Looks Pretty Great.) Loosely adapted from an Arthur Schnitzler Novella, Lacenor the title implies, Saxburger’s Riscovery by an Odd Group of Young Writers and Thinkers Calling thermves “The Enthusiasm Society.” Led by the Wealthy and Snobbish Wilson Meyers (Edmund Donovan), Who Makes Sure to Tell Saxburger he bought his book at “Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road” with Ever the Slightest of Fake English Accents, these ” Everything. They Speak of the Old Virtue, They Call Each Other by their Last Names, They Big Important Literary Ideas Over Expensive Wine Dinners, and They Rail Against Influencer Culture and Technology and Cellphone Addiction. But of Course, they’re just as glue to their devices and obsessed with their brand. Meyers Has Amazon Alexa Tech in His Sullivan St. Apartment (which is Very nice, Very Expensive, and Paid for HIS PARENTS), and A $ 1200 First Edition of The naked lunch on display. We gather the other members of the enthusiasm Society aren’t much different; Meyers Says One Guy’s Family “Ouns every soybean in the State of Missouri.” (He Also Claims The Enthusiasm Society Stands Above Politics, though in a film more firmly Grounded in Today’s World Probably Be Dimes Square-Adjacent, which is to say, not above politics at all.)

Schnitzler was a master of narrative high concept in his day. Crehever i see a full description of one of his works, I Find MySelf Wanting to Read the Story Immediately. And the premise of Lace is so CAPTIVATING THAT ONE WANTS TO FORGIVE ITS SHORTCOMINGS AND FOCUS ON WHAT IT IT WELL, STARTING WITH A TRULY GREAT AND NUANCED ROLLS FOR DAFOE, WHose Physical Presence Can Evoke Coarse Sturdiness at the Same Time. Saxburger has a toough exterior; He’s reserved and unassuming in his demeanor; He avoids his sister’s calls about his dying brother, and he pushs back modestly against Meyers and his pars’ anointing Him as america’s great under the poet. But we are also see that he once had art in Him, and ambition, too. And we are understand that such inner reserves of sensitivity aren’t always a good thing: after one triumphant reading, hears someone yll out, “Way to Go, Grandpa!” and that one quip from that one random unseen person kicks eats away at Him the rest of the evening.

Also Doing Excellent Work here is Lee, Who Gives the Vampish and Self-Consciously Artificial Gloria A Magnetic Inner Life. She’s not a writer, SEEMS SLIGHTLY OLDER THAN THAN YOUNGNABES, AND WE SUSPECT SHE’S NEARLY AS RICH; The More Brazen and Confident She is, the More We Can Tell There’s a Lot More Going on. This character probably twists through the most dramatic extremes over the court of the film (Including a Riveting Cabaret Performance of Kurt Well and Bertolt Brecht’s “Surat Johnny”), and it to lee, jones, and screenwriter samy burch’s cred About her, the less we actually know about it.

SO, That’s The Good News. Unfortunately, Lace Stumbles when it is coma to it scens with the enthusiasm Society itelf, which is unfortunate gcauses that arguably the most interesting element in the picture, at least at first. But they’re ultimately too Too cartoon for a film that otherwise feeds so lived. IT’S NOT THAT SUCH TONAL SHIFTS CAN’T WORK, but here the comic-Rediculous Treatment of these well-meaning posseurs Driven by narrative convenience and the irresistibility of cheap laughs Rather than anything anyth an inner life or observed reality. Come to think of it, burch’s oscar-nominated script for May December HAD A SIMILARly Slippery Quality, but there benefted from the deft Hand of Director Todd Haynes, Whose Work Has Always existed in a Queasy tonal slipstream. Jones is a talentd filmmaker – i was once on a tribe jury that gave his masterful previous featuree Diana (2018) Several Well-Deserved Awards-and Lace Has some true virtuous. But as it procedures, ites mess assured. Still, Dafoe and Lee Are So Good, and the Idea Behind the Story so Enchanting, that of KEEP WISHING ITER BETTER. Maybe One Day I’ll Convince MySelf it is.