Henry Fool

(Columbia TriStar)

Hal Hartley's film stars James Urbaniak as Simon Grim, a garbageman stifled into silence by his family and community until given a composition notebook and pencil by the title character (Thomas Jay Ryan), himself a monomaniacal budding author who recognizes Grim's voluminous jottings as a Whitmanesque outpouring in iambic pentameter. An unconvincing, melodramatic third act drags the film on about a half-hour too long, but Henry Fool has the wisdom to recognize that genius often springs from what is most despised and condemned.