Listen Up Philip

Philip Roth exploits his life for his work. Particularly w/ The Facts, Operation Shylock, & The Plot Against America, he merges the fictional & real, providing a meta-commentary on the act of autobiography: Aren't all our self-narratives fictions? Listen Up is a deft deconstruction of Roth's persona, removing "Philip" from his cocoon of fictions, sidelining him in what is putatively his story, & imagining the human consequences of this solipsism. In short, some phenomenal literary criticism.

Calling it an attack on Serious Literary White Men paints it too broadly - a biggest accomplishment here is that as unsavory and ugly as Schwartzman and Pryce are, they reflect a majority of the film's audience, myself included. Maybe it's like Rohmer in that way (a film about how men are garbage) but it cuts deeper. It's not just being shitty to women, it's being abusive in a way that is so natural that it informs your smallest gestures. This is unparalleled self-criticism.

Uncompromising in its portrayal of the arrogant and difficult Philip. There are no life lessons or giant shifts in perspective. This is not a story of redemption where the Grinch finds his heart and repents. The men are fools, tossing their verbal abuse at the women in their lives expecting to be celebrated for their brilliance. Though Philip may be the central voice, he is not the protagonist. If there is a hero, it comes from the female perspective shedding his poison.

- Integration of Poulson's character is ingenious, a DFW stand-in through which Perry plays on internal fissions of form and po(i)se (cf. Mssr Aesthete). - I keep coming back to Zimmerman offering to take Philip's plate then, seeing how much food is left, handing the plate back for Philip to scrape off himself. It's funny but not staged like the other visual gags, a gestural transfer between men who respect and even value such gestures but who have no guts for what's left on the end of the fork.

Aims for Woody Allen, but comes across as a pseudo-intellectual hipster asshole fantasy, as directed by an alien life form still trying to get a grasp on this whole human interaction thing. Some well-written dialogue kept it from being a complete disaster though.

Monochromatic, joyless, and boring as hell. "Philip is an insufferable piece of shit" is the only point ever made in this movie, and it's made over and over again. One would like to think Philip is being ridiculed here, yet, on the flip side, it's quite clear he's the star, and even though his failed relationships with women are supposed to be the nail in his coffin, it's equally clear the women are for some reason obsessed with him regardless. And in the end he's given great success. Blah blah

I wouldn't say this is simply an evisceration of upscale, literate comedies from people like Woody Allen or Whit Stillman, mainly because it has more on its mind than that, but this really does feel like a razor sharp reaction to them. It's an intelligent look at the masculine ego (specifically that of the artist) and the emotional wreckage that results, with fantastic performances, especially from Elisabeth Moss and Jonathan Pryce, and an uncompromising and erudite screenplay from Perry.

Does Perry want to be part of the establishment now? This is such a regression from the humor and poetic genius of The Color Wheel that I fear the worst for him. We really didn't need another faux-literary New York relationship drama with jazz sprinklings and suffocating close-ups. The "outrageousness" isn't funny either.

Perry has a certain way with words (nice voiceover narration!), and he draws natural performances from Moss and Pryce. But the editing is somewhat unrigorous at times, and Perry takes too much pleasure in letting his characters abuse each other for my taste. Why does Philip have to be such a Dicky Douchebag?

Elisabeth Moss is pretty stellar in this, whereas Jason Schwartzman seems to have forgotten that he's not in a Wes Anderson movie, his performance boring, unexpressive and inconsequential, which is a shame given the script is a fairly intelligently written exploration of the psyche of many different characters, even though it suffers from its self-indulgent verbosity. The camera work is very intentional and very uninteresting for me.

With a narcissist as the putative subject, Perry's camera holds long enough to reveal the many ways those around him are affected. The movie isn't going to welcome you in, but it'll reward you for staying a while.

Kibirli 1 yeni yazarın hikayesi. Hayatındaki insanlardan intikam alan Philip, 1 yazar dostu tarafından yeni kitabı için yazlığına gider. Fakat umduğunu değil bildiğiniz bulduğunu yiyecektir. Ağır temposu, oyuncuların iyi olmasıyla dengeliyor. Fakat senaryo, yönetmen tarafından uzatılmış. Philip'in beraber olduğu 3 karakterin iç dünyası anlatılmış. Filmin sonunda, eline birşey geçmiyor. Açık son bırakılmış. Erkeklerin nedir bu kadınlardan çektiği?

The film does a great job of setting up a pretentious asshole lead, his older pretentious asshole friend/mentor, and the women who come to regret being in their lives. It's characters are worthy of study, but the film never utilizes them for anything. The movie meanders about going nowhere interesting, only to make the same points over and over again. Though I will say Schwartzman plays his character perfectly. Reminds me of the string of characters Chris Eigeman played in the 90's.

Wanted to like it, and it did start with promise, but all the detours & endless dialogue wear you out. It resembles the films of W.Allen and N.Baumbach, but the characters are possibly even more unlikable. At first I appreciated how the film took time to deepen the supporting characters, but eventually you realize that their screen time is usually limited for a reason. Schwartzman was good and Pryce was a delight in this. Worth a watch for fans of indie cinema, but could have been much more.

There is a kind of bravery in making in making an emphatic portrait of one the most obnoxious arrogant self-indulgent pricks ever without taking the easy route. Schwartzman is perfect. Jonathan Pryce is superb. Elisabeth Moss is also very good as Phillip's ex. In fact the women are the real heroes in this movie. Making it secretly a feminist movie. The use of an omniscient voice-over gives the movie a very literary feeling, which suits the subject of the movie.

Star Rating: ★★★★1/2

This is a great visual representation of loneliness, isolation, and identity crisis. I did not care personally for the camera work, but it served the film well. I did like how successful the close up shots were at creating discomfort because of the sense of vulnerability. I found the first 49 minutes of the film to be funny and enjoyable, but I feel like it lost its way from there until the third act. I really like Jason Schwartz's performance in this. He found the perfect balance of being u

This is the film Greenberg should've been. The main message here is that if you're a dick you always will be a dick and in fact you'll only get worse, make friends with other dicks and ruin the lives of people you get romantically involved with. Unless you were born into a tinsel-town dreamworld, you won't find a woman who will soothe your pain and solve your problems. No happy ending here and that left me a happy man!

as caustically sharp the film is as its best, i really had enough of the pompous voiceover. Schwarzman is so watchable, he could be playing the meanest prick on earth (he almost is) and you'd still be captivated, but it's the voiceover that pushes the meanness over the edge. and while that's kind of cool, it also makes me less likely to revisit it.

Excellent in parts, but incredibly fatty.

Slow, boring mumble-core. Avoid it.

I didn't exactly mind the pretentiousness...maybe because the movie played it in such a self-aware manner...but it - though funny at times - didn't help either. It's kind of an instagrammy-looking semi-tragic story about over the top, yet cliché hipster assholes and hipster idiots while analyzing and making fun of them along the way. I don't know...pointless, but somewhat entertaining.

Alex Ross Perry has a voice! (Not only in his magnificent voice-overs) Jason Schwartzman has a gift! Elisabeth Moss was never better!

Another perfect vehicle for Schwartzman's inimitable blend of neurosis and cruel wit. It loses steam in the last third, or whenever Elisabeth Moss's beautifully expressive face is absent from the screen.

If the section devoted to Elizabeth Moss were a short film on its own, I'd be tempted to give this a masterpiece-level score. As it is, the rest of the film suffers from pig-in-the-mud syndrome: it wallows in its unpleasantness, and does so without providing a scrap of insight or wisdom beyond, "Philip is a jerk of enormous proportions."

Philip is somewhat of an insufferable asshole, always completely caught up in whatever he's doing, thinking or feeling and seemingly incapable of empathy or even pretending he's paying attention to other people. He is also kind of funny, a talent exhibited in countless long monologues. Your appreciation of the movie will probably depend on whether you are put off by his sheer assholeness, or secretly amused by his particular brand of vile humour. I tend to lean towards the latter.

Annoying camerawork gets in the way of some great writing and performances.

QUIET DOWN, ROTH! (original title)

favorite moments were towards the beginning where schwartzman blatantly ignores the niceties of social interaction and of course the detour with moss.

A caustic, cynical and wickedly funny film that mixes Cassavetes, Baumbach and Woody Allen extremely well. The performances are excellent, especially Elisabeth Moss.

Listen Up Philip is an unpleasant film, and I almost mean that as a compliment. Its main character is not a good person, has no intentions of becoming a good person, and the film doesn't try to force him to. It just watches him. And while you may learn something, it's also often a difficult watch, especially thanks to the way it was shot, which puts us directly in his immediate presence more often than not. It's tough to watch and not particularly enjoyable. But it's not bad.

Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think.