Tommy has lost his job, his love and his life. He lives in a small apartment above the Trees Lounge, a bar which he frequents along with a few other regulars without lives. He gets a job driving an ice cream truck and ends up getting involved with the seventeen-year-old niece of his ex-girlfriend. This gets him into serious trouble with her father.
Acting
Buscemi's sad-sack charisma makes Tommy pathetic yet weirdly lovable.
Direction
Buscemi's debut shows raw affection for barfly losers and their rituals.
Writing
Dialogue that finds poetry in people who've stopped expecting anything.
Director
Steve Buscemi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Buscemi wrote the script based on his own experiences as an ice cream truck driver in the 1980s.
Part of the 1990s American indie wave alongside Clerks and Slacker, capturing pre-gentrification working-class Long Island.
US
