Listen Up Philip

Listen Up Philip (2014) is a caustic indie comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Philip Lewis, a young New York novelist, is waiting out the release of his second book, fully convinced the world owes him a clear path for his talent.

Jason Schwartzman plays a man whose self-regard poisons everyone in range. The city feels too loud, his relationship with photographer Ashley (Elisabeth Moss) is coming apart, and promoting his own novel strikes him as beneath him. So when his aging idol, the celebrated author Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), hands him the keys to an isolated summer house, Philip flees there to focus on his one true subject: himself. Krysten Ritter turns up as Zimmerman's daughter, every bit as prickly as her father.

Director Alex Ross Perry shot it all on grainy 16mm and threads a literary, novelistic narration (Eric Bogosian) through the whole thing. The film never begs to be liked; it simply lets an insufferable man talk and watches who he wounds along the way. Made for anyone who likes mean, precise portraits of the creative ego — Woody Allen with the warmth stripped out. Stream Listen Up Philip online on iFILM.