Steve Buscemi paints an honest picture of working class suburbia, where living rooms are covered with shag carpets and Applebees is the best restaurant in town.
Comment
03/24/06
Lonesome Jim (2006)
59
%
Tomatometer
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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... [More]
Starring: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place, Seymour Cassel
Director: Steve Buscemi
Reviews for Lonesome Jim
... the story of Percyesque ex-suicide, a parable about how embracing childish things can be part of growing up.
05/19/06
A slight, but amusing and occasionally touching, dark comedy about depression and dysfunction that percolates with indie film hipness.
04/20/06
An interesting but unsuccessful study, although viewers should be cautioned about falling victim to its malaise.
05/06/06
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.
03/23/06
Steve Buscemi's third film as a director is a low key affair delivered with a wry sense of humour.
04/11/08
The problem is that a little of this minimalist kitchen-sink farce goes a very long way, and after a while Lonesome Jim starts to dry up.
05/05/06
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04/23/09
Anchored by dry humor and purposefully understated performances, Lonesome Jim steadily builds in charm as it progresses.
04/02/05
It keeps us rooting for him even as we can't stop shaking our heads and chuckling at what an absolute pill he is.
04/28/06
Minimalist, moody and morose, Lonesome Jim is a minor gem.
04/11/08
[Strouse] has written a forlorn and poetic story, and Buscemi has made it into a movie about taking a deep breath and deciding to stop being a mope.
03/30/06
Top CriticLonesome Jim -- despite its excellent cast, controlled direction and moody, well-judged atmospherics -- tends to alienate us, just as Affleck's Jim does.
03/30/06
Affleck is simply too clean-cut for the role.
03/23/06
Has great relevance to the lost adultolescent generation of today ... but it also flounders in its commonplace and too-familiar concept.
09/17/07
An unintentional parody of Sundance Hades circa 1996
08/30/09
"Lonesome Jim" is an earnest and modest 'little independent' movie that charms by way of its understated underachieving characters.
04/20/09
The supposed randomness takes on an artificial, movie quality -- precisely the thing that Cassavetes worked so hard to avoid.
03/31/06
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.
05/03/06
Has the delighfully deadpan face of a Bill Murray.
03/20/06
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