- Rating: ★★★½ stars
- Verdict: "Late Fame" stars Willem Dafoe as a has-been poet and Greta Lee as a struggling actress, both of whom are surrounded by and adored by a posse of pretentious post-grads in New York. It's a fun film, if somewhat predictable, but Lee's performance is special, stealing every scene she's in.
- Where to watch: Release date TBD (playing at select film festivals)
"Late Fame" is a movie that may not be on your radar. It wasn't on my radar until I saw it on the schedule for the Atlanta Film Festival this year. But when I noted that the call sheet had Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee in the lead roles, I didn't need any further convincing to check it out.
Fast forward 96 minutes to the end of this indie darling, and I'm very happy I saw it. That's not to say it's the best movie I've seen all year; it's not even the best movie I saw at the Atlanta Film Festival this year (that would be "Over Your Dead Body"). But it was a supremely enjoyable experience, and it featured one of the best performances I've seen this year so far.
Greta Lee steals every scene in 'Late Fame'
"Late Fame" is theoretically supposed to be about Ed Saxberger (Dafoe). A former poet in the 1970s New York scene, he's been a postal worker for decades when we meet him. But when Meyers (Edmund Donovan), a posh millennial, proclaims to be an avid fan of Saxberger's collection of poems, "Way Past Go," Ed suddenly finds himself a celebrity.
As part of his newfound celebrity, he's asked to sit in with Meyers' band of intellectuals: the Enthusiasm Society. To be clear, for the most part, these are all pretentious millennials (and a Gen Z kid or two) cosplaying as the beatniks of old. They all come across as NYU grads with more sense than money, something the movie pokes fun at on more than one occasion.
But then there's Gloria Gardner, and like Ed, she's the only one in this group who has actually created art. Played by Lee, Gloria is a talented, bombastic actress who comes across as a star at first. But it's clear from the moment you meet her that there's something darker lurking behind her fashionable appearance.
Those suspicions are proven true by the end of the movie, but along the way, Lee steals every scene that Gloria is in. The highlight of the movie is a sequence where she and Ed take mushrooms and go on a walk in New York, before watching her perform a one-woman show where a room of 20+ men just sit in awe of her. Every single man in that room, including Ed, can't look away during that scene, nor could anyone watching it on the silver screen.
Verdict: 'Late Fame' needs a release date — and one is coming
Don't get me wrong: Dafoe is still great in "Late Fame." And Donovan's performance as Meyers is applaudable. But Lee is magnetic and electric all at once. She makes the movie something more than merely good and demands your attention while she's doing it. Ed may be the one getting one last taste of fame, but it's Gloria who is the star of this tale.
There's just one problem: you can't watch "Late Fame" anywhere. Not unless you go to a film festival, as I did, and manage to catch a screening.
The good news is that this should change, and hopefully, this year. Magnolia, which recently distributed Bob Odenkirk's "Normal," bought the U.S. rights to "Late Fame" back in December 2025. Given that this movie has spent almost a year doing the film festival circuit, logic would dictate that a limited or even wide release would be in the cards sometime this year.
Will it ever make it onto one of the best streaming services? Maybe not, though, if Magnolia has the rights, it should eventually stream somewhere. But at least things seem to be on track for you to one day see Lee's stunning performance.
