With his touching 1996 feature directorial debut, Trees Lounge, about a borderline alcoholic, Steve Buscemi tried to recapture the elusive, spontaneous magic that made the films of John Cassavetes (A Woman Under the Influence, Love Streams) so great. And he actually came close.
Now Buscemi returns with Lonesome Jim, but the Cassavetes touch seems far away.
Lonesome Jim concerns yet another scruffy twentysomething, Jim (Casey Affleck), who reluctantly returns home to Goshen, Indiana, from his glamorous, independent life in New York City. A failed writer, Jim immediately papers his room with photos of suicidally depressed authors.
His family life reflects his demeanor. His divorced older brother, Tim (Kevin Corrigan) tries to kill himself. Jim's parents, Don (Seymour Cassel) and Sally (Mary Kay Place), run—of all things—a ladder factory. (Could this be a stab at symbolism?) Jim's grungy uncle—who insists on being called "Evil" (Mark Boone Junior)—works there, too, with lots of breaks for stolen candy, drugs and hookers.
Improbably, Jim meets a beautiful nurse, Anika (Liv Tyler), his first night home and sleeps with her (quickly) on a hospital bed. Even more improbably, she continues flirting with him. It turns out she has a son, Ben (Jack Rovello), who—still more improbably—takes a shine to Jim.
Buscemi tries to give Lonesome Jim a spontaneous feel by randomly jumping back and forth between events and conversations. But the supposed randomness takes on an artificial quality—precisely the thing Cassavetes worked so hard to avoid.
The problem with being spontaneous is that you can't try to be spontaneous. Lonesome Jim is so ordered that even the most potentially "surprising" events unfold as if there were no other alternative. The potential for an organic life pulse has been organized and planned out of existence.