Listen Up Philip (2014) on Netflix

Plot summary

Philip Lewis Friedman is a young novelist in New York City with a modest reputation in literary circles. He is angry and self-absorbed, and he blames other people for promises and dreams that went unfulfilled. He lives with Ashley Kane, a photographer, and pushes her away whenever she does not fit into his life. As the publication of his second novel, Obidant, approaches, the early critical response is poor and he has already spent his advances, so he needs income, though he will not take work he does not want. Ike Zimmerman, a novelist who was prolific in his youth but has published nothing for years, becomes his mentor and lets him stay at his isolated country house to write. Ike also helps him get a short-term teaching post at Lambert College upstate, which separates him from Ashley.