The Independent Film Festival of Boston started this evening and runs through the weekend. I'm planning on going and seeing a lot so we'll see if I can keep up with reviews. Tonight the festival opened with Lonesome Jim directed by Steve Buscemi and staring Casey Afleck and Liv Tyler. It reminded me a lot of Garden State and I had the same problems with it.
The film starts with Jim returning home, he's quiet, apathetic, depressed. His family is characatures. His mother is saccarine, always bubbly and happy even when things are not going well at home or at work. His father is quiet with occasional outbursts, his brother is similar to him but he had been married and has two young girls. Jim's really not likable, and to prove it he's shown stealing money from his mother early on (just like in Sideways). He uses the money to go to bars and meets Liv Tyler, a nurse, who quickly tells him she prefers hospital beds and then shows him. Various bad things happen to the family and Jim continues his apathy. There's redemption at the end as he takes a step to change but it's certainly not clear it will last. Lonesome Jim has some very funny scenes and some remarkably cruel, cringe inducing lines. It's ok but not great.
One of the advantages of a film festival is that the film makers often show up. This showing was followed by a question and answer session with director Steve Buscemi and the writer and producer. We learned that he likes to rehearse and lets the actors develop the scene. That they shot on small digital cameras and sometimes used two or three of them and he didn't yell cut because digital tape was cheap so scenes could just continue without breaking a flow. The writer's name is Jim and the names of all the family members are from his family. It was shot in his house and at his parents ladder factory, so I imagine there's some autobiographical stuff in here.
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