‘Trees Lounge’

Had he chosen just to hang out in his hometown of Valley Stream, Long Island, instead of pursuing an acting career, Steve Buscemi (pictured) might have become one of the millions of people whose entire lives revolve around a neighborhood bar. In Buscemi’s deceptively light dramatic comedy “Trees Lounge,” which marks the busy actor’s debut as a writer and director, we hang out ourselves for a few days in the hectic, boozy fringes of working-class suburbia with Buscemi’s Tommy, a guy whose own friends can only describe HIM as a screw-up. Tommy lives in an apartment above Trees Lounge, staggering distance from the center of his social existence. The death of Tommy’s uncle, an ice cream vendor, draws him out of the bar to be with his family and presents him with what he considers a demeaning opportunity, to take over the route in the neighborhood--only to end up in bigger trouble than ever. Buscemi handles all of this with a casualness that seems exactly right for the milieu (TMC Tuesday at 7:20 p.m.).