His big break for the bright lights resulted in a humiliating comedown as a New York dog walker and he's sunk further still with his reluctant arrival back at his mom and dads'.

Pop (Seymour Cassel) is a gruffly distant man while mom (an excellent Mary Kay Place) is an overbearing hausfrau who emotionally crushes him with her heavyweight dotage.

The picture of misery is completed by Jim's brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan), a divorced father-of-two whose boyhood dreams of working for the CIA were dashed and now he finds himself trapped in the family ladder business.

Seeking solace from the claustrophobic family bungalow, Jim heads off for a drink and fortuitously enjoys a one-night stand in a hospital bed with nurse Liv Tyler (yes, it does leap into the realms of fantasy a bit here).

When Tim is injured in a road accident (the suspicion is he was trying to kill himself), Jim takes his place at the family firm…and mentally struggles on, hidebound by his feelings of failure and family's rigid sense of obligation.

This is a bittersweet gem, with Affleck delivering the sort of finely judged if lower key performance that saw him winning plaudits (and an Oscar nomination) for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Jim is a gloriously joyless character, obsessed by writers who topped themselves or blindly drank their way to death, yet offered redemption by the good-heartedness of Tyler's nurse and her young son.

Things could easily have become a bit mizz but James C Strouse's excellent script regularly steps in to lift the mood, particularly a sub-plot which sees Jim's mom banged up for drug dealing.

It's a poignant, quietly life-affirming little story that doesn't need to shout. Lonesome Jim's good company.

Tim Evans