Listen Up Philip

It's a genre. The literary film. Note the title's font, a clear reference to Philip Roth.

It's a genre. You've seen the type before. The literary film. Stories about writers, their books, their lives, loves, egos, successes, and failures. Put a young, ambitious, self-absorbed writer in New York City, make him Jewish, give him a mentor and a string of girlfriends past and present, and call him Philip. Now add a title font that strongly resembles the fonts used on the covers of Philip Roth's books and you've got Alex Ross Perry's Listen Up Philip. Using two key techniques - a narrator's voice over (performed by Eric Bogosian) and long, dialogue-driven scenes filmed hand held in close ups - Perry's film is, like Jason Shwartzman's character, Philip Lewis Friedman, both attractive and repelling. Listen Up Philip attempts - and to some degree - succeeds in keeping us interested in the life of a lousy, heartless, but talented egoist. 

Philip is something of a conflicted, arrogant, prick but there's not a whole lot he can do about it. He's capable of walking out on a two year live in relationship with Ashley (wonderfully played by Elizabeth Moss), to teach literature at a bucolic college upstate, but he can't do it without destroying part of himself and his connection to people. His mentor, Ike Zimmerman (superb work from Jonathan Pryce), is not just a preview of what Philip will become in old age; he's also director Perry's attempt to create a portrait of our real world Philip Roth - just as young Philip Friedman attempts to show what the young Mr. Roth must have been like. While Perry fails at drawing authentic parallels between his characters and the real Mr. Roth (read Roth's biographical The Facts for a better idea of what Mr. Roth is all about), Perry nonetheless makes a wonderfully dark, sarcastic, cynical, and absorbing film about the limits of ambition, selfishness, and - ultimately - the about the impossibility of total self-knowledge.   

The ego, unchecked, young and old. Ike (Jonathan Pryce, left) has become what Philip (Jason Shwartzman) is en route to becoming.
Self-knowledge of one's arrogance and cruelty won't help; these men are hard wired to turn into loners.

With its period piece setting (it looks like it takes place in the 70's), its detached (existentialist? mais oui) nature, and its bevy of women parading in and out of Philip's life, the film takes a page from the Francois Truffaut / Jean Pierre Leaud  playbook. Add to that the intentionally self-conscious and overly analytical nature of the voice over (Truffaut often performed his own voice overs in the same - somewhat urgent but matter of fact tone) and Listen Up Philip feels less like a 2014 American  indie and more like a later French new wave effort. Intentional? Probably. 

What ultimately makes Listen Up Philip worth it is its insightful analysis of its main characters - even if they're all somewhat sociopathic. It's an intelligent movie, but it's emotionally very off putting. The brain has won over the heart, here. There's little concern for people's feelings. Feelings get in the way of ambition, achievement, accomplishment. Those who make it need to be heartless but, as the film illustrates in its final moments, they're also the ones that end up on the street, hoping against hope to find a place to lay down their ego and get some rest.

Putting self above all else.