Lonesome Jim, released in 2005 and directed by Steve Buscemi, follows Jim (Casey Affleck) on his journey through what he expected to be a nervous breakdown, and what turns out to be finding himself.

Jim has been residing in Manhattan, but has fallen on hard times, so has found himself on his way back home to his parents house in a small town in Indiana. His brother, Tim (Kevin Corrigan) is also living there, as well as his two nieces. His parents are portrayed as the typical American parents – the mother, Sally (Mary Kay Place) is a happy-go-lucky doting mom who just wants her children to be happy. You know the type: the kind who sits next to you in the bathtub? The type who doesn’t knock before entering a room? The type who is so starved for affection she takes any sort of grunt from her offspring as a conversation? And their father, Don (Seymour Cassel), says nothing until it’s absolutely necessary, and when he does talk, you listen. They’re a very tight-knit family and it’s taxing on Jim.After Tim finds himself in a coma after running his car into a tree, Jim is forced to put his nervous breakdown on hold, stand up for his family, and pitch in. He gets a job at his family’s ladder factory, takes over his brother’s job as a coach for a 10-year-old girls’ basketball team, and visits his brother regularly. He’s become involved with a girl he met at a bar, Anika (Liv Tyler), and tries to push her away after a very awkward date, but she seems to pursue him. Eventually Jim finds himself involved with his drug-pushing, scooter-riding uncle, Evil (Mark Boone Junior), and finds the family business in trouble. You definitely find out he’s a person of true character, despite his pallid demeanor, and has a good conscience.

I had never heard of this film before we found it on our Netflix cue, nor did I know Steve Buscemi directed. But I enjoyed it as a whole. It’s a good dark comedy with some great irony and nothing too fancy. It is a low-budget independent, but it’s not egotistical about that like many of them are. It’s a straight-forward story about a man trying to figure out who he is in life, finding a girl, and making it on his own in small-town Midwest America. I definitely recommend it.