By David Elliott
MOVIE CRITIC

April 13, 2006

The soft plop of a lonely “duh” echoes after “Lonesome Jim,” which uses a lot of talent to pretty well define the low-budget movie going nowhere.

Indigent Production Kevin Corrigan (left) is Tim, who isn't long for a vertical, aware state. Casey Affleck is the title's Jim - and loneliness is not his only problem.

Casey Affleck is Jim, maybe the least starring role ever to center a movie. In this wet doughnut, he is the wide hole.

Back in Indiana from time in Manhattan, where his writing dreams led to becoming a dog walker, Jim has a photo shrine of suicidal and alcoholic writers on his bedroom wall. Hemingway is the sacred center.

It clearly indicates director Steve Buscemi's humor that bearded Hem seems to stare at Jim as he has sex with Anika (Liv Tyler). Papa would not have approved Jim's listless sex technique. And, as a canny realist, he would have despaired that Anika, the prettiest nurse in 10 or 20 counties, has fallen into bed with this barely activated snooze.

MOVIE REVIEW “Lonesome Jim” Unrated; Opens tomorrow ½

Using the deadpan, flypaper manner that Buscemi affected far more amusingly in “Trees Lounge” (which he also scripted and anchored with his star performance), the film never quite clues us into Anika's thinking; she seems to like Jim because her kid does. A suction pump of morose tedium, Jim pushes his already stupefied brother, who wanted to join the CIA but works in a lumberyard, into a brief coma (hard to tell much difference).

Kevin Corrigan plays Tim, Jim's brother in vegetation. Their dad is the ladder-factory owner Don (Seymour Cassel), exasperated to have both guys back home and weary of ditzy wife Sally (Mary Kay Place). She lays on baby-talk endearments and gut-cram dinners, vaguely aware that she is the rubber ducky in a tub of depressed males.

Using James C. Strouse's script, filming in Strouse's hometown (Goshen, Ind.), Buscemi achieves some Buscemetric moments. There is a fine pub crawl to three bars, each named Riki's like remnants of a failed Hoosier franchise. “Riki's Lounge” might have equalled “Trees Lounge.”

There is a cute, repeated joke at the expense of Indiana basketball fever. And there is a dead-zoned uncle who likes being called Evil (Mark Boone Junior), a drugged sponge who breaks up tedium with mad mischief.

The shrug of plot has doodles about Evil's money scheme, bank trickery and dope mailings that land hapless Sally in the clink. She rebounds to make peach cobbler. The vaguely happy ending is a piece of lemon cobbler, gobbled in a wink.

  

An IFC Films release at Landmark Hillcrest Cinemas. Director: Steve Buscemi. Writer: James C. Strouse. Cast: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place, Seymour Cassel, Kevin Corrigan, Mark Boone Junior. Running time: 1 hr., 31 min.

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