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Lonesome Jim

Buscemi's third feature deserves a better ending

By PETER KEOUGH | May 9, 2006

2.5 Stars

From the title of the movie onward, Lonesome Jim (Casey Affleck) can’t catch a break. Failing in New York City as a writer and a dog walker, he takes the bus to move back in with his folks (Mary Kay Place and Seymour Cassel) in Indiana. There he’s greeted by his brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan, no less), who’s over 30, divorced, and the coach of a kids’ basketball team that has never scored a single point. He too lives at home. After a one-nighter with a nurse (Liv Tyler) he meets at a bar fizzles, Jim watches Tim’s team fail yet again to score a single point. He tells his brother he can’t believe he doesn’t kill himself; Tim drives off into a tree. It seems things can’t get any worse, and then they do. Steve Buscemi’s third feature mirrors his on-screen persona: hopeless, sardonic, deadpan. The comic timing and his Jarmusch-like minimalism carry the slim material most of the way, but a pat ending doesn’t do justice to Jim’s quiet but well-earned desperation.

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Topics: Reviews , Casey Affleck, Steve Buscemi, Kevin Corrigan, More

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