Retro Review: Trees Lounge

This October, fifteen years will have passed since the first time I saw Trees Lounge, a movie I'm constantly surprised to find people have never heard of, let alone seen. I can understand that John and Jane Multiplex might not be aware of a 1996 indie film written, directed, and starring Steve Buscemi, but even most indie-heads seem to have totally missed the film. It's possible that the popularity of Trainspotting overshadowed Trees Lounge, but then again I might just link the two together because I saw them both around the same time at the same place. With the number of Steve Buscemi fans continuing to rise in the wake of Boardwalk Empire, maybe it's time to look back at his first (and arguably best) directorial effort.

Tommy Basilio (Buscemi) is a functioning alcoholic that can't seem to do anything right but drink. He loses his job as a mechanic for "borrowing" money from the register and losing all of it at Atlantic City, and his ex-girlfriend Theresa (Elizabeth Bracco) is with his boss Rob (Anthony LaPaglia). Tommy spends most of his time in Trees Lounge, a neighborhood dive bar populated by (barely) functioning alcoholics, where he entertains the locals and charms newcomers with his drinking games. When Uncle Al (Seymour Cassel), an ice cream truck driver, has a stroke and dies during his route, Tommy takes over driving, although he's hardly a worthy successor. Tommy does strike up a friendship with Debbie (Chloë Sevigny), Theresa's teenaged niece. Their relationship irks Debbie's father, Jerry (Daniel Baldwin), and is only compounded when Tommy takes it too far. Can he turn his life around, or is Tommy Basilio destined to become another slouching barfly?


 I wish I could remember how or why I knew that Trees Lounge existed in 11th grade: it was so early into the age of the internet that I can't imagine that it came from that direction. There's an off chance I saw a review in the local newspaper (which is, curiously enough, the only reason I knew Donnie Darko existed five years later), and I do know that I was on a serious Buscemi kick, having finished most of his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers, and Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion (another movie that deserves to be better known than it is).

 Regardless of where I found out about Trees Lounge, I know exactly where I saw it: The Studio. I mention The Studio quite a bit; whenever I wax nostalgic about the concept of "grindhouse" theatres, that shoebox duplex of movies that weren't big enough for The Rialto and were too commercially unfriendly for The Colony (and believe it or not, there was a time when you could see Trainspotting with next to no one in The Studio, when people hadn't seen it and wouldn't for years). I saw Trees Lounge with a new-ish friend that transferred to the high school the Cap'n went to, one who shared an interest in "art house" cinema. Nobody else seemed that interested, and I guess that's been the story of Trees Lounge to this day.

 It really is a shame, because there's a lot to like about Trees Lounge: Buscemi's writing, directing, and particularly acting chops all serve the low-key story well, and he surrounds himself with great actors in smaller roles: Carol Kane, Seymour Cassel, Mimi Rogers, Debi Mazar, Michael Imperioli, Kevin Corrigan, Mark Boone Junior, and a brief appearance by Samuel L. Jackson, playing against the "type" he'd been cultivating while working with Tarantino. It's a film of small moments, of characters that hover in and out of the story, where the story is less important than the players.

 While I described the plot very nearly in full, Trees Lounge is more interested than your average "sad sack" alcoholic movie, even if it infrequently rises above a tone somewhere between downbeat and depressing. Buscemi is able to keep the character study engrossing because Tommy is such a likable loser; as an audience, we understand why people have trouble completely giving up on him, even though he seems to be incapable of keeping a good thing going. There's an easygoing charm in his performance, one that might surprise people used to Buscemi's twitchier, chatty performances in films like Fargo and Reservoir Dogs.

 Speaking of Reservoir Dogs, there's a moment early in the film where Tommy is driving around town, and he passes a familiar sight to fans of Tarantino's debut:

In the commentary for the long out-of-print "special edition," Buscemi insists that this was a coincidence and not intended to be a visual reference to the opening credits sequence from Reservoir Dogs. While I take him at his word, it struck us immediately in 1996 and continues to be a pretty big coincidence if you ask me.

 The out-of-print disc is, unfortunately, the only way to see Trees Lounge in widescreen, because when Lionsgate picked up the rights, they dumped the transfer and all of its extras for a pan-and-scan disc at a bargain bin price. The only upside to this was that when I finally - after years of unsuccessfully searching - found the first DVD, instead of paying $25, I only had to pay $7.99 since the updated retail price was lost on a bored employee at Coconuts. It may seem silly to have been so excited, but every now and then one feels that way when a movie goes overlooked for so long. Considering that it's better than subsequent Buscemi directorial efforts (Animal Factory, Lonesome Jim, and Interview), I'm hoping this review turns some of you on to a better slice of understated independent cinema. Think of it as proto-mumblecore, if that's what you're into.