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The opposite of Hollywood
10 Apr 2008
Actor-director Steve Buscemi is never likely to make a typical Hollywood movie — and the sad-sack protagonist of his third feature as director is the reverse of a Hollywood hero.
We first see Jim (Casey Affleck) returning to his home town in rural Indiana after failing as a writer in New York, where his last job was as a dog-walker.
He soon remembers why he left, as his doting, resolutely cheerful mum (Mary Kay Place) and his graceless dad (Seymour Cassel) try to tempt him to stay and do some work. He reluctantly agrees to do so when his equally depressed brother has an accident.
On the credit side, Jim manages to get a local nurse (Liv Tyler) into bed. But he is not very enthusiastic about that either. He asks himself the question — should he become a failure away from home, or just trudge on regardless in his own locale?
Buscemi’s portrait of working-class life is not exactly full of the joys of spring — almost everyone we meet is miserable in one way or another. But Lonesome Jim is a long way better than the usual empty rubbish that spatters the multiplexes, and worth seeing for a genuine attempt at some sort of dire truth.
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