The script is adroit: It doesn't force the humor, and it steadily keeps track of Jim's growing maturity.
Comment
04/13/06
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
Top CriticIn the end, Lonesome Jim is an enormously hopeful and, I think, realistic film.
04/13/06
[T]his is an intriguing portrait of near-suicidal misery... until, ironically, it tries to lend Jim some hope.... [N]o one seems to know where to take things from there.
04/12/06
Buscemi's small story of failure, depression -- and ultimately, love -- in one Indiana town rings painfully true-to-life.
04/11/06
Everything from the film's washed out, grainy look to the dialogue rings false.
04/08/06
Sweet and darkly funny for most of its 91 minutes, it falters only in a dawdling final stretch.
04/07/06
Jim's characters may grow on you after a slow setup and, like a hot plate of grits, may stick with you.
04/07/06
Mr. Affleck is burdened with the difficult task of making moroseness seem interesting. He doesn't succeed, and neither does the movie.
04/07/06
(Casey) Affleck has the presence of a stump and the charisma of mold and Buscemi's deadpan direction only enhances his absence.
04/06/06
Slight, deadpan, mild and understated, but enjoyable in a quiet, almost throwaway fashion.
04/05/06
The light, understated gallows humor often demonstrates the lack of any clear line separating the comic and the tragic.
04/03/06
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04/01/06
Nothing in this well-intentioned but lifeless indie draws the hard laughter that comes from creating characters that somehow get to you.
03/31/06
Buscemi's prior films (Trees Lounge, Animal Factory) displayed a keen eye for detail, and that is evident everywhere here.
03/31/06
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.
03/31/06
A wonderful little movie directed by Steve Buscemi ... [Hi]is humor flickers through the story like fairy lights on a gray and unpromising day.
03/31/06
Place [has] played overly chirpy, middle-class mothers/wives before, but the mom here is slowly revealed, through the subtlest changes of expression, to be much more than a caricature.
03/31/06
The supposed randomness takes on an artificial, movie quality -- precisely the thing that Cassavetes worked so hard to avoid.
03/31/06
Its mopey pace and the forced 'quirkiness' of its characters will have you reaching for the Ambien in no time.
03/31/06
[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
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