Listen Up Philip

Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry, Listen Up Philip follows Jason Schwartzman’s angry title character as he awaits the publication of his second novel and attempts to deal with the various women in his life (including his long-suffering girlfriend, Elisabeth Moss’ Ashley). There’s little doubt that Listen Up Philip takes a good long while to wholeheartedly grow on the viewer, as Alex Ross Perry delivers a somewhat hands-off opening stretch perpetuated by a variety of decidedly unappealing elements – including Sean Price Williams’s grimy cinematography and, especially, Schwartzman’s effective yet entirely unsympathetic turn as the movie’s acerbic protagonist. It’s clear, then, that the picture improves steadily as it goes along, with the turning point a twenty-minute segment revolving entirely around Moss’ comparatively captivating figure (ie the shift in focus provides a welcome respite from Philip’s believable but rather monotonous indignation). Listen Up Philip subsequently becomes far more compelling and intriguing than one might’ve initially suspected, to be sure, and the film ultimately does, particularly in its engaging third act, come off as a solid character study of a reprehensible (yet scarily plausible) type of person.

*** out of ****