Tribeca FilmIf Desiree Akhavan proved to be this year's most likeable listless, lovelorn protagonist in Appropriate Behaviour, then Jason Schwartzman's title role in Listen Up Philip sits at the other end of the spectrum. Vain, self-obsessed and neurotic, this ranks as one of the most intensely annoying yet oddly compelling characters in some time. Philip is something of an emotional blank - a wannabe intellectual and writer who considers himself to be far more talented than anyone around him (and far more talented than he actually is). When he meets Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), the writer whom he admired as a younger man, the two embark upon a friendship in which the servicing of one another's egos comes to the fore. Schwartzman delivers a deadpan performance which is arguably the best of his career, while the dynamic between him and Pryce makes for some wonderfully barbed exchanges as the two fuel their self-absorption. God only know what writer-director Alex Ross Perry will make of Winnie The Pooh in his upcoming adaptation - but then who would have thought Wes Anderson would do such a great job of Fantastic Mr. Fox?
