Fay is launched into a world of espionage as she travels to Paris to retrieve some of the journals, each having mysteriously appeared in the hands of the most unlikely of people.

Simon Grim, Fay's brother and Nobel Prize–winning poet, remains home with his sister's son, the CIA agent, and his publisher.

A former air hostess befriends and aides Fay, revealing she was similarly touched by Henry's chaotic influence.

The film culminates in a tense meeting with a notorious terrorist and friend of Henry, where she has to make the biggest decision of her life.

Fay Grim, like its predecessor Henry Fool (1997), was directed, written, co-produced and composed by Hal Hartley.

[8] He said he wanted to "pull the characters in this direction – into an international espionage farce – because the world was feeling crazy, mixed-up, and very dangerous".

[10] Hartley read the 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code twice while writing the script as he "wanted to make good on all the genre expectations".

The website's critical consensus reads, "Fay Grim is too concerned with its own farcical premise to present a coherent, involving story.