Factotumby Anonymous

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January 06, 2007: Commenting on FACTOTUM, a film based both on Charles Bukowski's novel of the same name and simultaneously an autobiography of a strange writer, is a difficult task. If director Bent Hamer and screenwriters Jim Stark and Hamer were striving to create the milieu in which the story of Bukowski's alcohol-soaked, lowlife women lover life as a wannabe poet and writer, a life of depression and failure and striving to be something other than a misfit, then they have succeeded admirably. If that is the goal then the movie deserves five stars. Sadly, the monochromatic delivery of lines, of lack of movement, of repetitive failures, and of the inordinately boring voice over delivered in a monotone makes staying with this film almost impossible. Matt Dillon is Henry Chinaski (read Charles Bukowski), a man who writes when he is barely sober from his 24 hour a day drinking, submitting stories to magazines and editors. But his main concern is making just enough money for the next bottle of booze. He hooks up with some equally sad women - alcoholic Jan (Lili Taylor in her usual fine characterization ability) and alcoholic Laura (the always fine Marisa Tomei) - and some transient buddies whom he meets at his various nothing jobs, attracting the attention at times of guys who will join him in a bookie racket, but always struggling with employers who do not tolerate his bellicose and drunken behavior. Even his parents throw him out. He is a sad sack of a man who finally gets a story accepted by Black Sparrow Press, seemingly the purpose of dragging us through this depressing 94 minutes of a film. Matt Dillon's performance has been praised by some and he does seem to embody Henry Chinaski's dreary soul, but the performance (especially the boring voice over portion) is so flatline that it is difficult to care for him at all. Yes, Bukowski wrote and lived like this and for Bukowski fans the movie will satisfy. For others this film is just too interminably dreary and long to tolerate for a second viewing. Grady Harp