For the last 5 years (maybe a little longer), Charles Bukowski has been my favorite author. I was first introduced to him when one of my college roommates gave me a copy of Women.

I read it in 3 days.

Reading Buke’s work gave me a love of reading. Before that reading was a struggle, the idea of sitting down to read an entire novel (that wasn’t Sci/Fi related) seemed like an impossible tasks.

Reading Women spoke to my internal insecurity, lonliness, and over-the-top anger. His writing felt ultimately relate-able. I loved that womanizing, drug-using alcoholic, who didn’t care about anything in the world besides a good drink, a nice pair of legs, and “playing with a poem” on his typewriter. I may not be able to relate to it anymore, but Buke takes that part of humanity that hates itself and presents it in such a self-realized way that it leaves almost everyone who reads his work idolizing the dirty underbelly of LA scum.

I enjoyed the other two films about Buke (Barfly and Bukowski: Born Into This), so I had high hopes of Factotum. The other films portrayed Buke so honestly (obviously the documentary Born Into This was going to) that I figured Factotum would provide even further insights.

I’m still settling on if I thought this was a bad or really bad movie, it obviously wasn’t as inspiring as I’d hoped. Here’s some of my impressions of the movie:

1. How do you portray a movie based on Bukowski’s life and novels without some sort of darkening filter on the lens? One of the major strengths of Barfly was the absolute darkness of that movie. Even when reading his books, you never get an impression of those bright Los Angeles days. How could Buke ever enjoy them while being drunk or hungover all the time (if anything Buke hated the daytime just for that reason)? Also, I think that most of his jobs were overnight. I think of movies like Payback or Unbreakable that used dark filters over the cameras to create a certain feel to the film. Definite miss on creating the proper Bukowski mood.

2. How do you get pretty actors to do this movie? Jesus Christ what a total and complete fuckup on their part.

Sure, Matt Dillon wears makeup throughout the movie to give the “impression” of having bad skin, or having the signature Bukowski slouch to make him look like he’s got a little belly going on. But it just doesn’t work. Buke was an ugly ugly ugly man. Not regular ugly too, but REALLY ugly. The ONLY person who, amazingly, was ugly enough to be in this movie was Marisa Tomei. Her hair was terrible, she had a look about her like she was cracked out, unkempt, and this I really don’t get, but her nose had a turn upwards giving her the impression of having enormous nostrils. How can you make Marisa Tomei NOT look hot? Also, Lily Taylor, baby, please, stop hitting the weights, you look like you have the body of a gymnast, and I do not mean that in a good way.3. I’m stealing this from a review that I read on Rotten Tomatoes, but the whole general angle of Buke’s view on being the scum of the earth was off. Buke viewed himself as the King of the World. There’s even a sense of pride and superiority that he had being a bum and alcoholic. Buke really took a passion in being a loser, he was the best loser that he could be, and had total gusto and appreciation about it. I just don’t like how this was done. Matt Dillon comes off more… indifferent then anything. The attitude more of just not giving a fuck, instead of taking pride in it. It was just off.

4. Charles Bukowski was an angry, angry, angry man, like every good writer. Honestly, can someone be a good writer if they don’t think that there is something wrong with the world, and they make a commentary on it? Bukowski’s judgementalness and jealousy of the world was a major fuel of his writing. The best example of his rage and temper is seen in the documentary Born Into This. At one point, in the middle of the interview he starts kicking and yelling at his wife, Linda Lee. Out of nowhere. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Instead, Dillon is completely leveled out, and doesn’t really show any sort of that “spunk” that Buke had. Even in one scene the character “Jan” berates Buke’s character at the track for not standing up to a guy who stole his seat. They go back to the seats, and Jan starts flirting with the guy until Buke is forced to do something about it. That doesn’t match the Bukowski that I know and love at all.

5. It seems like director Bent Hamer didn’t know a single thing about Bukowski. That is a REALLY big leap, and it would be insanely unprofessional if Hamer went in not knowing anything of Bukowski. But it would make A LOT of sense thinking that Hamer didn’t read a single book, poem, watch Barfly or Born Into This, and instead walked into the movie trying to just make a movie. That would be a shame.

The movie does have a slow evolution though, and by the end of the film, it starts to take on that familiar Bukowski flair like drinking in the waiting room of a Day Worker agency, and then pushing around the office manager as he kicks him out of the building.

I suppose anything that promotes Bukowski’s works is a good thing, but I just wish it would have been done better.

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