Trees Lounge

Trees Lounge is so deft, funny, and light-handed it may not be until the film’s shattering final image that you realize you’ve been watching one of the most lived-in portraits of an alcoholic ever made.

There's nothing "big" about Trees Lounge : Its comedy, as well as its drama, is purposely understated, culminating in a long shot that uses an actor's face to speak volumes. It has the spirit of Cassavetes in it, only it's not nearly so self-indulgent, and its emotions are so real they hurt. [25 Oct 1996, p.5G]

The movie is bracing, bleak and funny, assuming you can appreciate the comedy in a story full of lowlifes, lushes and losers.

Buscemi gets such fine ensemble work out of his actors that you never doubt that Tommy and his friends, family and ex-friends are united by one thing. They've spent far too much time together. [25 Oct 1996, p.F6]

Where Cassavetes often uncovered the grotesquerie underlying such desperate lives -- usually after one round too many -- Buscemi's vison is rooted in compassion and a quirky humor that's entirely his own.

Buscemi is after a slice of life with a grown-up slacker. The trouble is that, in the end, this isn't terribly interesting.

I like Steve Buscemi. I really do, which is why it's such an disagreeable task to write a review that condemns his directorial debut as a waste of film. I'm not talking about a good idea gone awry, I'm referring to something that's rotten to the core.