Director: Steve Buscemi
Screenplay: Steve Buscemi
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Mark Boone Junior, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco, Seymour Cassel, Carol Kane, Samuel L. Jackson
Running Time: 95 minutes
Genre: Drama, slice-of-life
In a tough, working-class neighbourhood of New York City, alcoholic Tommy Basilio (Buscemi) is a fixture at the local bar, Trees Lounge. His girlfriend of eight years has left him for his boss and former best friend, Rob (LaPaglia). Rob subsequently fired Tommy from his job as a mechanic for stealing money form the till. In between drinking at the Trees Lounge, Tommy spends his time half-heartedly looking for work, eventually being given an ice-cream truck, following the death of the owner. He also manages to form a connection with Debbie (Sevigny), the seventeen-year-old niece of a former girlfriend.
This is a downbeat, slice-of-life drama, very much in the John Cassavetes school of gritty realism, and features Cassavetes regular Seymour Cassel. By and large the film sticks with Tommy, but it also deals with the lives of other Trees Lounge regulars, all of whom seem to lead pretty miserable lives. Some crucial elements in the film are left ambiguous, not depicted on screen we are left to decide for ourselves what really happened from the often differing versions of events that the characters give us. Not much happens in the film and, in keeping with the lives these characters lead, there are no real conclusions, despite glimmerings of hope it looks as if they will keep doing the same things over and over again. This is a strong debut from Buscemi as a writer-director making largely unlikeable characters sympathetic and giving the film a strain of dark comedy. The film has a strong cast full of recognisable faces from nineties independent movies. The film's largely plotless nature and slow pace may put off some viewers but it is worth sticking with because it is a well-performed and well-written drama. Buscemi scripted and directed one other film Animal Factory (2003) and has directed a number of TV episodes, but Trees Lounge really makes me which that he had done more as a writer/director because, on the evidence of this, he could have become a notable filmmaker as well as an actor.
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