Change Your Outlook. Change Your Life. Nearing the age of 30 with no real accomplishments to show for his years Jim (Casey Affleck) humbly returns to his small town and moves back in with his eccentric parents (Mary Kay Place and Seymour Cassell) and brother (Kevin Corrigan). As he tries to guide his family through the little dramas of everyday life Jim stumbles into a romance with a kind optimistic nurse (Liv Tyler). Directed by Steve Buscemi Lonesome Jim is a wise smart comedy about the courage it takes to accept the past and to embrace the future.
Its not very often that one can label a film 'nice' and have it to come across as a compliment, but nice is perhaps the best way to sum up Steve Buscemi's 'Lonesome Jim'; its nice in the same way that 'Jersey Girl' and 'The Straight Story' are nice. Casey Affleck plays our eponymous hero James Strouse; a struggling writer whose unsuccessful bid to make it in New York comes to a grinding halt, prompting a slow retreat back home to small-town Indiana, and when his brother attempts suicide; James is forced to return to a life he'd thought he'd left behind. 'Lonesome Jim' is similar in direction to 'Hallam Foe' with thematic nods to 'Garden State', 'Junebug' Hal Hartley's 'Ambition' a hint of 'Buffalo 66'(sans dark humour) and even a little 'Thumbsucker' style sulking and introspective angst. Affleck puts in a subtle, believable performance as the depressed twenty-something whose self-esteem is given a boost after hooking up with compassionate nurse Liv Tyler. Ted Demme's 'Beautiful Girls' is still the best film about a guy who returns home, though nothing tops 'Grosse Pointe Blank' when it comes to memorable reunions! A vast improvement on 'Trees Lounge', 'Lonesome Jim' still lacks the insightful wit of 'Factotum' or the natural eccentricity of 'Little Miss Sunshine' and may be over familiar to indie fans, nonetheless, it's a well acted, sometimes touching film with offbeat humour, a positive message and moments of quiet reflection.
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Steve Buscemi directs and Casey Affleck stars in this comedy drama about a failed novelist who returns from New York to the small Indiana town he grew up in. When Jim (Affleck) runs out of money in the big city, he is reluctantly forced to return to his dysfunctional family home. He doesn't really get on with his folks and he has no interest in the family business. But after his depressed, older brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan) ends up in a coma, he is forced to help out at his parents' ladder factory as well as looking after his two mischievous nieces (Rachel and Sarah Strouse). At the factory he meets his Uncle Stacey (Mark Boone Jr), aka Evil, who is using the plant as a front for his drug dealing business. When Jim's mother (Mary Kay Place) is mistakenly arrested and jailed for narcotics smuggling, it looks like things can't get any worse. But between his budding relationship with his brother's nurse Anika (Liv Tyler), and coaching a junior basketball team that includes Tim's daughters, the perenially glum Jim concedes that there may be a chink of light at the end of the tunnel.
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