Lonesome Jim

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Buscemi does not act in Lonesome Jim, but his sly humor and keen eye for nuance resonate in every frame. I can't recall having a better time at a movie about depression.

Premiere Jessica Letkemann

With a cast of well-chosen actors, a good script, and an eye for making ordinary suburban scenes visually heartbreaking, director Steve Buscemi's small story of failure, depression-and ultimately, love-in one Indiana town rings painfully true-to-life.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

In sad-sack movies there is often a helpful woman around to help the despairing heroes. In "Garden State," it was Natalie Portman; in "Elizabethtown," Kirsten Dunst. Both were salvation angels, but Tyler has a gentle approach to this kind of role that is perfect for the tone of Lonesome Jim.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

If Lonesome Jim feels like it's perpetually on the verge of evaporating, Buscemi brings to the material the boundless empathy for misfits and screw-ups he displayed in "Trees Lounge."

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Affleck is dead on as the hapless Jim but the film is nearly stolen from him by Mark Boone Jr. who plays Jim's drug induced Uncle Evil. Kevin Corrigan is also great as Jim's brother Tim.

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

Under Buscemi's overall smart direction, the acting is terrific.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

Bleak, minimal, bone-dry and hilarious, it creates a rich and layered world from deft strokes of dialogue and action.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Humor in 'Jim' is a little too dry.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

As a director, Buscemi is drier than he is as a performer: more quietly funny, less intense and sometimes weirdly compassionate.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Affleck's gloomy, one-note performance exacerbates the problem, but the stellar supporting cast helps compensate.

Variety Dennis Harvey

There's a slightness to the mildly eccentric material here that leaves the whole enterprise in danger of fluttering away.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The script is adroit: It doesn't force the humor, and it steadily keeps track of Jim's growing maturity.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Buscemi shoots with a cloudy, melancholic air that suits the material and does nothing to prettify the setting. But you can't sense any of the surprising energy or subversive wit that characterizes his best performances.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Mostly a snooze. Maybe if Buscemi himself had starred in it things would have turned out better.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Lonesome Jim has the import of a deliberately squelched sitcom, or a home movie that's poisoned by unhappiness but shown anyway for stray laughs.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It finds some fine comedic moments when it stops focusing on Affleck's never-ending angst and starts exploring small-town oddness.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Buscemi's latest, Lonesome Jim, written by James C. Strouse, asks you to spend 91 minutes with a 30-year-old slacker and would-be writer who has the DNA of a sloth. "Slowsome Jim" is more like it.

New York Post Kyle Smith

One of those indie excursions to Loserville that lasts an hour and a half but feels longer than "Roots."

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

At one point screenwriter James C. Strouse name-checks the brilliant Richard Yates, whose fiction similiarly perches between grim humor and utter despair, but the movie's hip detachment is a far cry from the unruly passions of Yates's chronic losers.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Well-intentioned but lifeless.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It doesn't leave you much to hold on to in a comedy about apathy that can't even muster the energy to care.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The narrative of Lonesome Jim pokes about aimlessly, trying to mine nuggets of amusement.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Buscemi is stymied here by the inertia of his material.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Mr. Buscemi wrote and starred in the small gem of a movie ("Trees Lounge"), which had more psychological nuance than this emotionally cauterized slice of minimalist malaise.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

First-time screenwriter James C. Strouse (in whose hometown the film was shot) provides so few clues to the source of Jim's malaise, or that of his entire sad-sack family, that the movie remains rudderless and not the least bit believable.