Veteran character actor Dennis Farina gives one of the best performances of the year in a rare lead part as an aging, down-on-his luck small-time hood in “The Last Rites of Joe May.’’
The film’s sad trajectory can be surmised from the title and the opening, when Joe checks out of a Chicago hospital after a seven-week bout of pneumonia. He’s already presumed dead by his landlord, who’s tossed all of Joe’s possessions — except for a few of his beloved opera records — and rented his apartment of 40 years.
Fortunately for Joe, the new tenants, a single nurse (Jamie Anne Allman) and her young daughter (Meredith Droeger), are barely scraping by, and are happy to rent a room to the old man.
Joe empties his meager savings account and goes looking for work, shivering through the Windy City winter in a too-thin leather jacket from the ’70s.
Our hero’s efforts are as tragic as they are hilarious, and yet, he’s always trying to put up a good front — lavishly tipping from a wad of cash he’s padded with a bunch of one-dollar bills.
It’s the specificity in Farina’s performance — the body language is perfect — that makes us feel we know Joe’s entire life story, which includes a long-abandoned son who coldly rejects his father in his hour of need.
A former criminal associate begs Joe to move into assisted living with him — but the proud old man is having none of it, even as his cough loudly hints that his life on the streets will soon have lethal consequences.
Joe’s chivalrous side is aroused when the nurse is battered by her cop boyfriend. But is our increasingly frail hero capable of one last grand gesture?
“The Last Rites of Joe May’’ contains few surprises, but it doesn’t really matter. Working on a shoestring budget, writer-director Joe Maggio makes great use of Chicago for his story.
He is greatly abetted by the unforgettable Farina, who makes this little movie well worth seeking out.