As I mentioned before I am a big fan of Steve Buscemi as an actor. Well i'm just as enthusiastic about his work as a director. I saw his first feature length directorial effort Trees Lounge when I was around 15 years of age and it was the first film of its kind to really resonate with me. I don't come from a family of film enthusiasts in any sense so I was brought up solely on films available in the mainstream. Trees Lounge made me open up to a whole new world of films and inadvertently introduced me to Wes Anderson's feature length debut Bottle Rocket and his later body of work, and also made me realise it was okay to like films I hadn't necessarily heard of, or that maybe my friends hadn't seen.
The reason, I believe, Steve Buscemi's films to have made such a connection with me is because of their sheer realism. These are films about real people in real situations and there is rarely anything other than these characters actions to drive the plot forward, giving the films a more realistic pace.
Coming back to Lonesome Jim, I do consider this to be a truly remarkable film, in the sense that it was shot for $500k and is filmed completely on mini DV handheld cameras. It is the story of a failed writer returning to his rural community after failing to make it in NYC. The cast is a sublime mix of Indie film regulars such as Casey Affleck as Jim, Mark Boone Junior as evil and Seymour Cassell as the quietly disappointed father of Jim and his suicidal brother Tim played by Kevin Corrigan.
In my opinion the lack of budget and the amateur looking filmwork do the movie all sorts of favours, making it more realistic and giving the viewer a sense of voyeurism as we watch these people go about their somewhat mundane everyday lives. My only problem with the film is Liv Tyler. Although I do believe her to be a moderately talented actress, she just doesn't ring true as a small town nurse and single mother. I'm not sure if thats because she is so absurdly attractive its hard to imagine her as anything other than a Hollywood star, or if its because her range of facial expressions seem to all be suffixed with the word pout. Happy pout, moody pout, motherly pout, their all here. Other than that small qualm, which to be honest was a bit nit picky and perhaps a bit unfair on Liv Tyler, I very much enjoyed this film and would recommend it to anyone. Now i'm off to watch Liv Tyler's car washing scene from One Night at McCools so I can respect her as an actress again.
Four stars
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