oughly ten years after cementing his place as an alt-hero director - with “Henry Fool,” a tale about art and celebrity, and introducing us to garbage man Simon Grim and his horny sister Fay - Hal Hartley is back in the fray with Fay Grim. This quasi-sequel is part satire, part action flick and, unfortunately, part dull and frustrating.

Parker Posey is Fay, a suburban mom whose missing husband Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan), has fled the country after accidentally killing another man. Her brother, the notorious poet Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), is serving 10 years in the pen for helping Henry escape. Her son has been expelled from his school.

Flash forward ten years. Faye learns that her inscrutably deranged Henry was a super spy of sorts, which leads to her being visited by two shady FBI grunts - Fulbright (a fast-talking Jeff Goldblum, doling out the movie's funniest dialogue) and assistant Fogg (Leo Fitzpatrick).

Through them, she learns her husband's diaries may hold the key to a number of state secrets, of which could blow the lid off of any number of international conspiracies, governmental manipulations and foreign policy scandals. The FBI wants Fay to retrieve the manuscripts. She decides to do it, but only if Simon gets released from prison.

Things pick up considerably when Faye leaps from New York to Paris to Istanbul, as she is forced to look for the missing man she married – who is very much alive and on the run - and for those notebooks which may be a ticking bomb of corrupt government incrimination.

Hartley, a director who first made his mark with a handful of movies (The Unbelievable Truth, Trust), tries to get his mojo back with this sequel, magnifying his signature flavour; quick cuts with sharp angles, off-beat humor and quick bursts of monotone dialogue.

And Posey delivers a charming, tongue-in-cheek performance - fluttering her eyelashes, pouts, flirts and teases. But her eternal charm can't save a darkly surreal espionage movie where even the characters seem completely confused as to what's going on. "Fay Grim" is being released simultaneously in theaters, on HdnetTV, and on DVD.