'Listen Up Philip' has the write stuff

MOVIES ABOUT the artistic process - "Whiplash" or "Birdman" - like to argue that artists are entitled to make or demand any sacrifice in pursuit of their work.

This single-mindedness is presented - begrudgingly or admiringly - as necessary, even heroic.

For another view, try "Listen Up Philip,"

Jason Schwartzman stars as Philip, a flagrantly selfish writer of fiction whose only defensible attribute is honesty - that is, he's ruthlessly honest about the super-priority he grants to his ego, vanity, and the cultivation of his talent.

Schwartzman is caustically funny in this role, equipped with amusing, rapid-fire comic dialogue from writer-director Alex Ross Perry, who manages to make Philip's solipsism a kind of running joke. There are faint echoes in Philip of the Larry David persona.

Perry's models, though, are literary. The title is apparently a nod to Philip Roth, and so, too, is the character of Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), a Roth-like legend of American letters living in the countryside, where he invites Philip to reside and write.

The pairing of these two men is amusing. Ike is even more monstrously, tactlessly selfish than Philip, who chafes at some of the great man's casual insults but in general takes advantage of this opportunity to learn at the feet of a master jerk.

The odd men out here are women - Philip's girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss) and Ike's daughter (Krysten Ritter). Both give us portraits of unrequited love - one bitterly funny, one bitter and sad.

There is a fifth major (if invisible) character here - the anodyne narration of Eric Bogosian. I'm not a fan of wall-to-wall voice-over, but you get that it's part of the literary conceit here, and Perry makes droll contrast between the narrator's version of things and the self-serving actions of certain characters, particularly Philip.

The moral of the story? You may admire the work of great artists, but don't date one.

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