Lonesome Jim Movie Review

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Steve Buscemi is directing a movie after his 2000 masterpiece Animal Factory (watch it!). That's all I needed to know to be first in line (not literally though) to see Lonesome Jim, a movie about the miserable lives of a small town people in Indiana. Loosely based on his life (or maybe just his family), writer James C. Strouse has come up with a very moody story that is touching and also funny, but for all the wrong reasons.

Casey Affleck stars as Jim, a 27 years old who comes back home to live his parents and big brother after a failed attempt to make it big in New York as a writer. His family's lives suck, and while his sucks too, he doesn't hesitate to tell them why theirs are so bad leading to even more depression. After driving his brother Tim (played by Kevin Corrigan) to try to kill himself, Jim meets Anika (Lyv Tyler), a nurse in the hospital who likes Jim from the start, even though he's almost suicidal (just cause Tim beat him to it). She's also a single mom.
Tim doesn't die though, but he has to stay in bed after breaking his legs, so Jim must go on to work to the factory owned by his parents Sally (Mary Kay Place) and Don (Seymour Cassel). His uncle Stacy (played by Mark Boone Jr.), self nicknamed 'Evil' also works at the factory. Jim must also take care of coaching Tim's daughters' basketball team, a pathetic group of little girls that haven't score even one basket in the entire league currently being played.

Fantastic performances are to be found everywhere in this movie, with emphasis on scene stealer Mark Boone Jr. who's just awesome. Jack Rovello who plays Anika's son Ben also steals all the scenes he's in.

But is Casey Affleck who owns the movie, with a perfect portrayal of a young man whose miserable life inundates everyone who surrounds him. The way he delivers his perfectly written lines makes you laugh but at the same time feel so awkward for the situations, like when Jim tells his mom that "Some people are just not meant to be parents", and he means it.

What doesn't work in the movie is its technical aspects, and I have to blame Steve Buscemi for it. Yes, the movie is probably really cheap but I'm sure the cast of mostly (if not all) friends worked for free, and so I can't understand why would he chose to film the movie with such bad cameras making for a horrible cinematography. And the sound is not very good either.

But all that didn't keep me for liking Lonesome Jim, its great performances, and amazing storytelling from James C. Strouse who really has a future in movies, and I wouldn't mind them being about his family again.

Review by Hakeem