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MOVIE REVIEW
Lonesome Jim
Starring: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place
Directed by: Steve Buscemi
Written by: James Strouse
Nothing screams of loneliness more than having to move in with your parents when you are almost 30-years-old. What a mark of failure it seems to be. As the 27-year-old Jim, Casey Affleck brilliant plays self-deprecating and wallowing in misery to the point that you cannot take your eyes off of him. Then you want to hug him and be his friend. He steals your heart. His vulnerability. His hopelessness. His ennui. The aspiring writer returns home to Indiana after failing in New York. Lonesome Jim is an honest, realistic portrait of a mid-mid-life crisis and its often funny, often sad effects.
Jim to his brother: You make a dollar over minimum wage and live with your parents. I'm a fuck-up but you're a goddam tragedy.
He ends up working at the family factory when his depressed brother (Kevin Corrigan) is hospitalized. Jim has an overprotective mom (Mary Kay Place) who makes cookies and called him her "pretty boy," and apathetic father (Seymour Cassel) and a druggie uncle. When he meets Anika, a nurse at the local hospital, (Liv Tyler in yet another sweet, understanding single mom role) -- the last one I recall was actually the touching Kevin Smith-helmed Jersey Girl with the elder Affleck (Ben), he starts to move away from his melancholies and to re-examine how he fits into the world. Anika is non-judgmental, caring, and empathetic. Everything a guy could want. Especially a guy in Jim's precarious situation. He could easily just flounder or he could really delve into the depths of darkness. Or he could accept just being in the moment as Anika encourages him to do.
Jim: I sort of came back to have a nervous breakdown.
Anika: What's wrong with you?
Jim: Chronic despair.
I could definitely relate with this. I've had goals I've not met. I've felt out of place. I've been forced to live at home. Steve Buscemi does a great job of digging into the souls of people. Of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary little moment to examine, to analyze, to dwell in. Lonesome Jim is a gem of a film.
Grade A
By Amy Steele
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