Synopsis
Tommy has lost his job, his love and his life. He lives in a small apartment above the Trees Lounge, a bar which he frequents along with a few other regulars without lives. He gets a job driving an ice cream truck and ends up getting involved with the seventeen-year-old niece of his ex-girlfriend. This gets him into serious trouble with her father.
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Cast
- Steve BuscemiTommy
- Chloë SevignyDebbie
- Carol KaneConnie
- Mark Boone JuniorMike
- Bronson DudleyBill
- Anthony LaPagliaRob
- Michael BuscemiRaymond
- Elizabeth BraccoTheresa
- Rockets RedglareStan
- Samuel L. JacksonWendell
Recommendations
- 100
Entertainment Weekly
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. - 90
The New York Times
Trees Lounge is not much more than a jumble of beautifully acted sketches that introduce the characters in Tommy's world. - 90
The A.V. Club
Ubiquitous screen presence Steve Buscemi makes an impressive writing/directing debut in this depiction of small-town alcoholism. - 90
Time Out
Buscemi's semi- autobiographical first feature as writer/director is a beautifully low-key, disarmingly perceptive blue-collar character-study, reminiscent of vintage Cassavetes in its sociological and emotional authenticity. - 88
Chicago Sun-Times
If anybody ever wrote a Field Guide to Alcoholics, with descriptions of their appearance, sexual behavior and habitats, there would be a full-color portrait on the cover of Tommy, the hero of Trees Lounge. - 80
Variety
The film’s virtues are modest, but Buscemi has come out on top by taking on people and a place he clearly knows inside out. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Buscemi eschews the conventional and ends "Trees Lounge" on a stranger, more tantalizing note. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
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.
