‘Late Fame’ Review – Willem Dafoe Shines In Kent Jones’ Quiet Drama [NYFF 2025]

At some point or another, we’ve all had aspirations of fame on some level. Being a news anchor, a pop star, or an actor has likely popped into your head from time to time, but most of us go on to live normal lives away from fame and notoriety. Oftentimes, a creative will get their due long after they’ve passed on. Influential writers like Kafka and Dickinson never got noticed in their lifetime. 

Kent Jones’s first film in eight years, Late Fame, shows us what might happen if a writer got their recognition long after they’d given up writing, but before they were no longer able to receive the praise themselves. We’re first introduced to Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), a postal worker in the mail organization side of the operation. He lives a simple life, making enough to have a decent apartment and have drinks with his buddies at the local bar most nights. One day, when arriving home from work, he finds a young man enthusiastically awaiting him across from his apartment. Known simply as Meyers (Edmund Donovan), he tells Ed that he and his friends have been greatly impacted by a book of poetry that he wrote decades ago. This inciting incident, a small gesture of appreciation for something Ed had long forgotten, changes the course of his life dramatically.

It takes a few encounters with Meyers, but Ed eventually warms up to him and agrees to meet his group of self-proclaimed renaissance men at their nearby hangout spot. Their love of his work all those years ago is altogether jarring, confounding, and emotional for Ed. He’s not really sure what to do with the attention, and tries to take it with humility while passing off compliments to the group as the real artists in his mind. These young men, along with Gloria (Greta Lee), present as constantly busy, perpetually working on some great work of literature or acting piece. Presentation isn’t everything, though, as Ed comes to learn. 

Late Fame’s modest stakes create an incredible playground for Jones to explore Ed’s character and utilize a toned-down performance from Dafoe. Dafoe has been known for his wacky, over-the-top characters over the years, like in The Lighthouse (2019), Poor Things (2023), and Nightmare Alley (2021). While I love those performances, Late Fame forces him to play a real person that you might actually meet in the world, and not just a caricature of himself. Ed is, by all measures, a normal guy. He works, and he hangs out at a bar with his friends. He seems content with how things have worked out for him. It’s not until the group of young creatives enters his life that he starts to become unhappy. They bring back that dream of being a poet, something he worked at for so long. 

Dafoe masterfully goes through the stages of notoriety, expressing humility, anger, and greed throughout the film. The character study reminds us how quickly a little bit of fame and recognition can corrupt someone, turning them into a person they don’t recognize. His sweet humility turns on a dime to bitter hubris as the young men continue to gas him up throughout the film.

Kent Jones takes advantage of an incredible script by Samy Burch (May December) to bring us the charming and emotional Late Fame. Dafoe’s performance is definitely the stand-out, offering audiences a side of him that we don’t often get to see. A small but powerful Greta Lee performance bolsters the film with even more weight towards the back half. The stakes are relatively small here, but movies like this remind us of the small things that somehow dominate our lives more than the bigger events we may face.

Late Fame held its North American Premiere as part of the Main Slate section at the 2025 New York Film Festival.

Director: Kent Jones

Writer: Samy Burch

Rated: NR

Runtime: 96m