Factotum

Hamer’s perhaps unlikely follow-up to the marvellous ‘Kitchen Stories’ centres on a terrific, possibly career-best performance from Matt Dillon as the Bukowskian hero Henry Chinaski, a slob of a man being hired and fired from one undemanding job after another between his bouts of boozing, gambling and fucking with women (very memorably Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei) as libidinous and devoted to hooch as himself. The first half of the film is near-perfection with its dry humour, unsentimental generosity and fidelity to the spirit of Bukowski’s writing and world view; and even though the second half has minor flaws (the odd curtailment of the fling with Tomei, for example) it’s still a marvellously funny, tender, perceptive movie. And, appropriately, it’s blessed with a real love of language.