Liv Tyler stars as a good-hearted nurse who begins a sexual relationship with Jim and starts to see him as a potential stepfather for her son.

Lonesome Jim premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize,[1] but it lost to Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue.

Jim (Casey Affleck) is a perennially gloomy 27-year-old aspiring writer from Goshen, Indiana who had moved to NYC in hopes of finding success with his writing.

After two years of barely making a living as a dog walker, he decides to move back home to his parents' house in Goshen.

He works in the ladder factory that's owned and operated by their father Don (Seymour Cassel) and cheerful mother Sally (Mary Kay Place).

Despite working at the factory and feeling responsible for his mother's imprisonment, Jim allows Anika to soften his depression and starts believing that life is worth living.

However, the deal with Universal was unexpectedly cancelled and Lonesome Jim then ended up being shot and produced on a meager budget of $500,000 with the original filming schedule being reduced from 30 down to 17 days.

[13] Mathew Turner of View London proclaimed "Lonesome Jim is one of the year's best films, thanks to a superb script, terrific performances and Buscemi's assured direction".

[14] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded it three stars out of four, calling the film a "deadpan delight" and proclaiming "I can't recall having a better time at a movie about depression".

[17] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly awarded the film a grade of C-, writing that director Steve Buscemi "is stymied here by the inertia of his material".