Swaggering into the role of the adult rebel without a cause, Matt Dillon plays Henry Chinaski, Charles Bukowski’s living gold standard of the modern American who truly, deeply and sincerely does not give a shit.
Oh yes, Chinaski does care about one thing, his writing, which is mediocre at best. But the good or bad quality of the writing is not the point. The point is to be true to your ideals and never give in to the Man, no matter how bad it gets.
And yes, it also helps if you drink an awful lot and change girlfriends as often as you change jobs, which is about every month or so.
The novel “Factotum” (definition—man of many jobs, jack-of-all-trades) is one of Charles Bukowski’s defining works and still packs a lesson of sorts to be true to oneself, no matter what the odds of success. At some point in Chinaski’s life success itself becomes secondary to the fight for, well, success.
He is so busy being true to his ideals that he seems to lose sight of the goal and doesn’t seem to care much one way or the other. Or perhaps his goal was to be drunk as much as is humanly possible and writing was number two all along. Either way, his rugged individuality will resonate with artists even while his particular solution most likely leads to the ultimate failure of his writing as well as his liver.
Starting off with a bang, the film shows Chinaski losing his job of the month as a janitor for a supply warehouse. The boss tells him he has an urgent order that has to go out immediately and all of the drivers are busy.
We feel the excitement well up in Chinaski as he prepares to seize the opportunity for a business failure of Olympian proportions and we are not disappointed. His employer tracks him down two scenes later when Chinaski is at approximately blood alcohol level .12 into what promises to be another in a long line of poetic, honest and straightforward drunken binges.
Chinaski hooks up with girlfriend Jan played by Lili Taylor (‘I Shot Andy Warhol’ (1996), plays the lead Valerie Jean Solanas) to form the happy couple living in their own world. They steal cigarettes out of cars and generally live the life of world-class drunken slackers until Chinaski hits his big opportunity of the film which is being a bookie for co-workers with his pal Mannie, played to the hilt by Fisher Stevens (appeared with Matt Dillon in ‘The Flamingo Kid’ in 1984).
Together the two show a prodigious flair for gambling and are an instant hit with the guys at the plant who couldn’t pick a winner if their lives depended on it. But his relationship with Lili flounders as his dress and manner improve in response to the responsibilities of his new-found world.
In the best line in the film she accuses him of letting his success as a small time bookie go to his head as he walks around in a suit “...like a big shot or a plumber or something.” But his new-found success is too good to be true and he drops the pretence of if not an honest life, at least a life making a living. He goes back to his writing.
The scenario of the lost job and lost opportunity is repeated throughout the film but for some reason never gets old. Whether this is due to Dillon’s exceptional portrayal of the character, Bent Hamer’s sparse but solid screenplay or the fine and gritty photography, the whole affair comes off as an entertaining example of how to lose with style.
For those who saw and loved the original Bukowski rendition ‘Barfly’ with Mickey Rourke as Chinaski and Faye Dunaway as girlfriend Wanda Wilcox, this film is a must see.
If Dillon and Taylor are not Rourke and Dunaway they are close, and getting closer every day.
An excellent, but too short performance by Marisa Tomei as girlfriend number two makes us want to see more.
Limited release August 18th. MPAA: Rated R
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