Factotum is a movie based on a book, that's loosely based on the shiftless life of Charles Bukowski who wrote the book. The book was adapted for the screen by the film's director Bent Hamer, who does an apt job of capturing his whiskey-soaked, check-to-check lifestyle. A man cursed by his gift for writing, but kept from it by the necessity of working odd jobs in order to support his food, cigarette, alcohol and gambling habits. The definition of the titular word and character is someone who is able to do many jobs, but I've also heard it defined as jack of all trades, master of none. This seems a bit more apropos of Matt Dillon's character Hank Chinaski. He rarely holds down any one job much longer than a few months at best. I'd say this is the first snaggletooth role that Dillon has taken where he's been at all successful in burying his inherant pretty boy manner. He put on a few pounds and shaved back his hair to look like natural recession and just acted. For the most part it worked.

In a rogue-ish and rugged Bohemian way Chinaski is an attractive man and thus falls into relationships with two insecure women with whom he carries on dysfunctional co-dependant relationships founded entirely upon on sex and alcoholism. The primary relationship is with Lily Taylor who has terribly low self esteem and mostly caters to Hanks mood swings and bouts with writer's block, unemployment and drunkeness, but is able to keep him somewhat contented by drinking apace with him and always being willing to offer her body whenever he might feel inclined.

The film is certainly a study in Spartan minimalism, thanks mostly to the Swedish director's proclivities, not alot happens and what does, happens slowly. Still, due to the acting and the interesting human dynamics that the film explores I found myself fascinated much of the time and I never found it dull. After his first split from Lily Taylors character, he finds himself in a relationship with a much more classy and well to do woman played by Marisa Tomei. Chinaski cleans up his act to try to conform to this new love interest but as they say a zebra never loses its stripes and it isn't long before he gravitates back into the groove of his nature and with that the dissolution of his relationship with Tomei soon follows. Tomei acquits herself well here in a relatively small role, it seems more and more these days, bigger name performers are drawn to small indie films and television. Both mediums are competing with the big studio films with much more success.

Dillon narrates passages from the book throughout the film - which I enjoyed, because it wasn't expository, rather sort of cleverly expressed summations of truisms that the film explores. In that sense it din't "tell" it still "showed," which may sound odd but there's nothing I hate more than narration that explains things that we didnt need explained - these voice-overs are great passages from the book that crystalized major points the film makes and gives us a taste of the kind of art that he was willing to suffer to create, which is what the film is about. In the end I suppose we are left to decide whether or not the art of his prose is worth the poverty, heartache, alcoholism and frequent humiliation he endures so that he might produce this work? It's a valid question and a worthwhile film.