Review: ‘Late Fame,’ starring Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee and Edmund Donovan

October 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Late Fame”

Directed by Kent Jones

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Late Fame” (based on the novella of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An elderly post-office worker, who gave up on being a poet after his 1979 book of poems was a commercial failure, is “rediscovered” by a group of young artists, who want him to make a comeback.

Culture Audience: “Late Fame” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies that take aim at false images that are presented when artists try to market themselves as “authentic.”

The witty drama “Late Fame” gives amusingly accurate observations about the pretensions of ambitious artists. Willem Dafoe exquisitely plays a disillusioned poet who is plucked from obscurity for an agenda-driven comeback. Although “Late Fame” gives a very specific portrait of what New York City’s artistic scene can be like in the 2020s, many of the movie’s themes can apply to any artistic community that has no shortage of brilliant talent as well as wannabes and pretenders.

Directed by Kent Jones and written by Samy Burch, “Late Fame” is adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s 1894 novella of the same name. “Late Fame” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie was filmed on location in New York City.

“Late Fame” begins by showing post-office worker Ed Saxberger (played by Dafoe) coming home to his modest apartment in New York City’s Manhattan borough. Ed (who is in his late 60s or early 70s) is a bachelor who lives alone and doesn’t have much of a social life, except for hanging out with a few co-workers at a local bar/pool hall. It’s implied that Ed has no children because there is no mention of him being a father. If Ed was ever married, that’s not mentioned in the movie either.

Ed mentions later in the movie that when he was 17 years old and a high-school dropout from western Pennsylvania, he moved to New York City with very little money and had big dreams of becoming a professional poet. In 1979, Ed had a book of poems published titled “Way Past Go.” The book was a flop and has long since been out of print. Shortly after the commercial failure of “Way Past Go,” Ed gave up his dreams to be a poet. He has been working as mail sorter for the U.S. Postal Service for the past 37 years.

When Ed arrives at his apartment building on this particular day, he finds out from his nosy neighbor Paulie (played by Tony Torn) that a young male admirer has been waiting “like a prom date” for Ed outside of the building. Ed is curious about who this stranger is, so Ed goes to talk to him. The stranger introduces himself as Wilson Meyers (played by Edmund Donovan), who is in his early-to-mid-30s, and says he prefers to be called by his last name.

Meyers already knows who Ed is and tells him breathlessly and enthusiastically, “I read ‘Way Past Go.’ It’s as if the poems were written yesterday. They just slap you across the face with their relevancy.”

Ed is surprised and flattered. Meyers mentions that he bought “Way Past Go” at a place that sells out-of-print books. When Meyers asks Ed what Ed is doing with his life now, Ed matter-of-factly says that he’s a postal service worker who sorts mail. “Ah, a man of letters,” Meyers says as a friendly joke.

Meyers (who describes himself as a poet) offers to take Ed out to dinner and gushes to Ed, “You wrote a masterpiece, whether people know it or not.” Ed thanks Meyers for the compliments but politely declines the dinner offer.

Meyers tells Ed that Meyers isn’t the only admirer of Ed’s work. Meyers says that he’s part of a small group of artists called the Enthusiasm Society, who are all fans of “Way Past Go” and would love to meet Ed. Meyers says that Ed has an open invitation to hang out with the Enthusiasm Society at a local cafe called Any Old Place in Manhattan’s East Village, where the group meets on a regular basis.

When Ed gets home, he listens to a voice mail message from his sister Barbara (voiced by Welker White), who is annoyed that Ed hasn’t been returning her phone calls. She gives an update on their ailing brother Jimmy, who is apparently close to dying. Barbara scolds Ed for not seeming to care about Jimmy. “He’s your brother too,” she says.

Ed’s reluctance to return his sister’s phone calls is the movie’s only indication that Ed’s family represents a painful part of his past that Ed feels he doesn’t want to revisit. When Ed decides to go to the cafe to meet the Enthusiasm Society, you get the sense it’s not just because of curiosity but also because a part of him might be seeking a new family, especially a group that he knows already adores him before even knowing him.

Ed meets the Enthusiasm Society when he sees stalkerish Meyers again. Meyers asks Ed if he can read and evaluate Meyers’ poetry. It’s during this conversation that Meyers persuades Ed to meet the other members of the Enthusiasm Society, who mostly want to be referred to by their last names.

As expected, the members of the Enthusiasm Society treat Ed like a long-lost celebrity. Meyers introduces the rest of the group to Ed. They are mostly in their mid-to-late 20s. Ed soon finds out that most of the members of the Enthusiasm Society aren’t really struggling financially because they come from affluent families who are funding their artistic endeavors.

Chia Carmichael (played by Arthur Langlie) is a fairly quiet aspiring playwright. Brussard (played by Clay Singer) is a brooding cynic who is a cultural critic/essayist. Sherfey Fernandez (played by Graham Campbell) is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and has taken a vow of silence, so he is non-verbal for the entire movie. Winn (played by Luca Padovan) is a very perky multi-format writer and the youngest member of the group: He’s about 17 years old and still in high school.

Meyers tells Ed that the members of the Enthusiasm Society have a particular fondness for and want to emulate the beatnik artists of the mid-to-late 20th century. (Allen Ginsberg is a particular hero of the Enthusiasm Society.) Meyers says that the Enthusiasm Society consists of counterculture non-conformists who think social media and technology addictions are ruining society. The Enthusiasm Society members have a particular disdain for social media influencers, whom they point out in the cafe as shallow non-intellectuals.

Someone else is part of the group and shows up later: Her name is Gloria Gardner (played by Greta Lee), who is a theater actress and cabaret singer. Gloria is the only woman and only person of color in the Enthusiasm Society. And until Ed is asked to join the group, Gloria (who is in her early 40s) was the oldest member of the Enthusiasm Society.

Everyone tells each other a little bit about their personal backgrounds, except for Gloria, whose personal background is “murky,” according to Meyers. When Gloria does show up, she does a lot of preening and swanning. She talks a lot about how hard it is to get funding for a play that she wants to do. Mostly, she acts like she’s a fabulous and in-demand diva, even though it’s an obvious façade.

When the Enthusiasm Society members decide to have dinner at a nearby restaurant, the group wants to hear Ed tell stories of any respected artists whom he used to know. When he’s asked if he knew any of the Beat Poets, Ed says no. Gloria leans over and quietly suggests to Ed that when someone asks him that question, he should lie and say yes. Clearly, Gloria is accustomed to putting on false airs for herself, so it’s no wonder she thinks other people should do it too.

Ed is attracted to Gloria, but Brussard privately warns Ed that Gloria likes to manipulate men and is already involved with Carmichael. Gloria senses that Brussard has been saying negative things about her to Ed. She tells Ed that Brussard made a pass at her but she rejected Brussard.

Gloria leans into Ed and says seductively, “I have a high tolerance for despicable men.” Regardless of who’s telling the truth, it doesn’t lessen Ed’s attraction to Gloria. She openly flirts with him and goes out of her way to spend some time alone with him.

It isn’t long before Meyers tells Ed that the Enthusiasm Society is having an introductory event where the members will have their work performed in public. Meyers wants this event to be a showcase for Ed’s comeback and suggests that Ed write a new poem that Gloria can perform at this event. Ed is taken aback by this idea, but he eventually agrees to this plan.

Meyers invites Ed over to his place so they can get to know each other better. It’s here that Ed finds out how rich Meyers really is and how Meyers (who doesn’t have a job) has been living off of his family’s money. (Observant viewers will notice at the end of the scene that Meyers, who supposedly is very anti-technology, uses Amazon’s A.I. virtual assistant Alexa in his home, which is something that’s revealed after Ed’s visit ends.) Meyers, who has a master of arts degree from New York University, shrugs off his privileged lifestyle and says that the Enthusiasm Society doesn’t care about where its members went to school or who their fathers are.

But then, Meyers proceeds to ask Ed the type of questions that are aimed out finding out Ed’s educational background and family status. Ed mentions how he dropped out of high school and moved to New York City at age 17. When Meyers asks if Ed is Jewish (because Ed’s last name is Saxberger), Ed says his father was a non-practicing Jew, and his mother was a Catholic homemaker.

Meyers seems to think Ed being a high-school dropout who didn’t come from a wealthy family makes Ed look like some type of “cool” bohemian. Meyers suggests to Ed that Ed should write a memoir. It’s an idea that Ed is not enthusiastic about at all. However, Ed is open to the possibility of getting a new book deal to publish any of his new poetry. The attention that Ed gets from the Enthusiasm Society has renewed his interest in being a poet.

Meyers sets up a meeting with a literary agent whom he knows named Harrison (played by Jake Lacy), who works closely with a top publishing company called Novell. This meeting is an eye-opening experience for Ed, who finds out that what this agent has in mind for Ed is not what Ed wants to do. It’s also the first indication that Meyers wants to push Ed in a direction befitting what Meyers wants to do by promoting Ed as being worthy of a comeback.

As Ed spends more time with the Enthusiasm Society, their “high and mighty” intellectual ways start to rub off on him. Ed starts to avoid his blue-collar buddies Arnold (played by Clark Johnson), Irv (played by Stephen Badalamenti), Hank (played by Daniel Oreskes) and Leonard (played by William Hill) because Ed says he’s too busy with his new set of friends who admire him as a poet. And when Ed does hang out with his old friends, such as during Arnold’s birthday party, Ed literally says they’re too lowbrow for him. This insult happens after Ed gives “Way Past Go” as a birthday gift to Arnold, and Ed gets lightly mocked for it by the men at the party.

Ed ignoring his siblings and distancing himself from his longtime friends might sound like he’s a self-centered jerk. However, Ed has a very compassionate side to him, particularly when it comes to Gloria, whom he treats very well. His infatuation with Gloria, just like the Enthusiasm Society’s unexpected passion for Ed as a poet, seems to have reawakened Ed to a past version of himself that he thought had long disappeared.

“Late Fame” drops enough hints to show that certain people in the Enthusiasm Society are not exactly who they pretend to be. Why are they, especially Meyers, so fixated on making Ed a famous and widely respected poet? Ed is caught up in the non-stop flattery until he starts to see the true natures of some people who want to attach themselves to him.

“Late Fame” screenwriter Burch (who was Oscar-nominated for 2023’s “May December” screenplay) mines similar territory about how delusion and deceit can be a toxic mix in crafting public images. In addition to serving up biting commentary on privileged people pretending to be edgy struggling artists, “Late Fame” also skewers the hypocrisy that is often part of creating artists’ public personas. Ed has never been a “fake it ’til you make it” kind of guy, so he’s in for a rude awakening when he finds out that some of the aspiring artists he thinks are his new friends have no problem with telling lies to get ahead.

It leads to the inevitable question: How much of the Enthusiasm Society’s admiration for Ed is real or fake? It’s the part of the story that is the most intriguing. Dafoe (who can always be counted on to give above-average performances, even in his worst movies) is in fine form in “Late Fame,” as someone who has renewed hope in getting another chance at a long-abandoned dream. Dafoe’s portrayal of Ed has moments of wistfulness that are somewhat heartbreaking when you know that Ed’s Enthusiasm Society “fan club” is built on a shaky foundation of hidden agendas.

Jones’ engaging direction of “Late Fame” infuses an authentic blend of New York City’s artistic community in the present-day, by depicting those who are hungry for recognition and want the grit and the glamour, while chasing after fame and artistic credibility. The movie’s visual style and music also evoke some fond nostalgia for New York City of the 1970s, the decade that Ed had his biggest chance of “making it” as a poet. (Lou Reed’s 1976 songs “Charley’s Girl” and “Ooh Baby” are part of the soundtrack.) There’s a wonderfully simple but impactful scene of Ed taking out photo albums and scrapbooks when he’s by himself at his apartment, to remind himself of the “good old days” before his poet dreams were crushed.

Lee and Donovan also give standout performances for characters who are both similar and different from each other. Lee’s Gloria is obviously a “fake it ’til you make it” type of person, but you immediately sense that she does it out of necessity because she doesn’t have a rich family to support her, like Meyers does. Gloria also has the talent to back up her aspirations. There’s a scene where Gloria invites Ed to see her do a cabaret performance, and she sings a terrific rendition of “Surabaya Johnny” from the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht musical “Happy End.” Ed is suitably entranced.

Donovan’s skillful portrayal of Meyers morphs from being a star-struck exuberant fan to being a calculating control freak. There are many different sides to Meyers, depending on who he’s talking to and what he wants. He can go from be a seemingly progresssive thinker who wants to relate to everyday people to being an elitist snob of the highest order. The Enthusiasm Society is supposed to be democratic, but Meyers often acts like a dictator.

“Late Fame” is not a cynical indictment of people who want another chance at pursuing goals and dreams. And although the movie has clear examples of how the “haves” and “have nots” can operate differently in society, “Late Fame” is not a complete attack on those who are more privileged than others. Rather, “Late Fame” is a clever and memorable story about identity and what can happen if we choose to let other people define who we really are.