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Lonesome Jim (2006)
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Reviews Counted:87
Fresh:51
Rotten:36
Average Rating:6/10
Consensus: Though Lonesome Jim is leavened by sweet, understated humor, it's hard to root for such a morose, self-defeating protagonist.
Synopsis: With LONESOME JIM, director Steve Buscemi delivers another low-budget gem about small-town American life. Boasting a fresh script courtesy of James C. Strouse, the film begins when 27-year-old Jim... With LONESOME JIM, director Steve Buscemi delivers another low-budget gem about small-town American life. Boasting a fresh script courtesy of James C. Strouse, the film begins when 27-year-old Jim (Casey Affleck) returns to his small Indiana town after having failed to make a dent as a writer in New York City. Depressed beyond comprehension, Jim must contend with his actively suicidal brother (Kevin Corrigan), insane mother (Mary Kay Place), and dangerously clueless uncle (Mark Boone Junior). Along the way, he meets a too-good-to-be-true nurse, Anika (Liv Tyler), and begins coaching his niece's hapless basketball squad. As time passes, the fog threatens to hang around forever, making Jim wonder if returning home might have been the worst mistake of all. Hilarious in its honesty, tender in its performances, and compassionate in its direction, LONESOME JIM is an example of superior independent filmmaking. Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler deliver especially wonderful performances, giving three-dimensional depth to characters that could potentially have come off as one-note clichés. One can only hope that audiences will see through the low-budget production values and embrace the film's universal themes. [More]
Starring: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place, Seymour Cassel
Starring: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place, Seymour Cassel, Kevin Corrigan, Mark Boone
Director: Steve Buscemi
Director: Steve Buscemi
Screenwriter: James C. Strouse
Producer: Celine Rattray, Jake Abraham
Studio: IFC Films
Reviews for Lonesome Jim
Its mopey pace and the forced 'quirkiness' of its characters will have you reaching for the Ambien in no time.
Screenwriter James C. Strouse (in whose hometown the film was shot) provides so few clues to the source of Jim’s malaise, or that of his entire sad-sack family, that the movie remains rudderless and not the least bit believable.
Feels like a first film, but "Jim" is Buscemi's third feature and because it marks a technical decline from his earlier efforts, I can't help but greet it with disappointment.
Casey Affleck is Jim, maybe the least starring role ever to center a movie. In this wet doughnut, he is the wide hole.
There's a slightness to the mildly eccentric material here that leaves the whole enterprise in danger of fluttering away.
Its title character is such a lifeless loser, you wish Moonstruck's Cher was around to slap him hard and yell, 'Snap out of it!'
Another product of the woefully inadequate InDigEnt company, who have almost never turned out an agreeable movie, Lonesome Jim feels as if it's from an earlier time and not in a good way.
The supposed randomness takes on an artificial, movie quality -- precisely the thing that Cassavetes worked so hard to avoid.
As in 'Elizabethtown' and 'Jersey Girl,' the hero doesn't have to do anything but exist to attract the devoted attentions of a beautiful woman, a sexist fantasy of entitlement as insidious (if unacknowledged) as that found in an old Rat Pack movie.
Though Affleck does his best to humanize his one-note character, he's stuck in a script by first-time screenwriter James Strouse that works in broad strokes and trite moments.
One of those indie excursions to Loserville that lasts an hour and a half but feels longer than Roots.
(Casey) Affleck is adequate as the lead, although I kept wondering how much lower Buscemi could take Jim.
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