City Island

It sounds glib to call Raymond De Felitta's "City Island" this year's "Little Miss Sunshine," yet the comparison is apt. Both films depict dysfunctional families nearing collapse, and both are blessed with razor-sharp screenplays and ensemble casts that are wonderfully, hilariously perfect. Each member of the cast (especially top-billed Andy Garcia) gives an Oscar-worthy performance, and all will be robbed if they don't win the Screen Actors Guild Best Ensemble Cast Award next year.

The eponymous "City Island" is a small community just off the shoreline of the Bronx, officially part of that borough but with a small-town charm all its own. As Molly Charlesworth (Emily Mortimer), one of the film's characters, declares, "It's a cross between New England and Washington Heights!" Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a "clamdigger" (a lifelong resident of City Island), as opposed to a "mussel-sucker" (someone who moves to City Island, or one of those very rare natives who moves away). Vince works as a prison guard (though he prefers the term "corrections officer"), but that job doesn't seem to satisfy him these days. His wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies), daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) and son Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller) wonder why Vince has a "poker game" almost every night, and also why he's brought paroled convict Tony Nardella (Steven Strait) home to live with them. The other Rizzos, meanwhile, are harboring secrets of their own...

To reveal any more of the plot would be sabotage. Let's just say the bickering of the Rizzo family reaches critical mass, with catharsis to follow. In any case, you fall in love with all the characters, and although you might be a little leery of some of the things they do, you'd still be happy to have them all over for your Sunday barbeque. "City Island" is a funny, charming, touching must-see.

I think that it's become my mantra--"quirk is the curse of independent cinema." In an effort to be cutesy and/or clever, films have been systematically stripping away genuine warmth and humor by presenting character types and sitcom contrivances instead of mining what is really funny in our everyday foibles. It becomes a fine balancing act, then, because a good quirky film can be both hysterical and touch your heartstrings. However, one that goes over the top can be painfully unreal and hard to sit through. And, in my opinion, there is very little middle ground. So it is with some trepidation that I picked up "City Island," a family comedy that promised to explore the eccentricities (code word for quirk) and secrets in the working class Rizzo clan. And, in a pleasant surprise, here the quirk works!

Headlined by Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies, "City Island" follows the boisterous Rizzo family as it navigates its way through enough secrets and deceptions to fuel several movies. Everyone is lying to everyone else! Garcia has a "secret" love child who is a convict, Margulies suspect him of cheating when he's "secretly" taking acting classes, their son has a "secret" fetish, their daughter has a "secret" job, and everyone "secretly" smokes--heck even Garcia's acting partner (Emily Mortimer) has a big "secret." That's a lot of secrets and leads to a lot of confrontation for one movie. But inexplicably, "City Island" and its immensely likable cast juggle these story lines like pros. The set-up is genuinely funny and the big revelations strike just the right note between hilarity and warmth.

Garcia is a hoot through-out, but credit must be given to the entire cast. Mortimer, in a role that might have been a disaster, provides genuine intelligence and pathos. Ezra Miller, as the son, is spot on hilarious--especially in the film's first half. And Steven Strait, as the love child con, is a revelation as the voice of reason within the madness! Writer/Director Raymond De Felitta has taken my worst nightmare and turned in one of the more effortlessly enjoyable films I've seen in a while. Slight, but very funny, "City Island" is a definite recommendation. KGHarris 9/10.

Reading - and the movies - offer the opportunity to explore new and unusual places, some of them not far from home. Thus, the movie "City Island" introduced me to a small fishing village of that name in, the Bronx, New York, of all places. City Island is a quaint close-knit fishing village of about 4000 people on the west end of Long Island Sound. This movie, which won the audience award at the Tribecca Film Festival in 2009, is set and was filmed in City Island. It is a town of old homes, beaches, bridges, fishing vessels, and the water. Residents of City Island distinguish between "Mussel Suckers" - the larger part of the community born outside the community and "Clam Diggers" those residents who grew up in City Island. This distinction is carried over into the movie.

The story itself might have happened anywhere, but it gains strength by the setting in a small urban area where people seemingly know their neighbors. The movie tells of the secrets that people hold from those closest to them and of the difficulties of opening up. The main character is the Rizzo family. Vincent Rizzo, played by Andy Garcia who also produced the movie is a middle-aged corrections office (he resents the term "prison guard") who harbors dreams of being an actor. He attends acting school one evening a week and, to avoid embarrassment, tells his disbelieving wife that he is out for a poker night. A woman student at the acting school with secrets of her own encourages Vince who begins as an imitator of Marlon Brando and learns to act in his own person and character. Against odds, newcomer Vince auditions for a tough-guy part in a movie by Scorsese.

Vince's hard-bitten wife, Joyce, (Juliana Margulies) feels lonely and frustrated as she feels the passion between Vincent and herself has died. She thinks Vince is having an affair during his "poker night" and of course thinks the worst when she meets Vince's acting companion. The couple have two children, Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) who unknown to her family has dropped out of college and is working as a stripper in the hope of returning to school and high school student Vince, Jr. (Ezra Miller). Ezra is strongly attracted to big beautiful women (BBWs), including his neighbor who has a BBW cam site and a young girl in his high school class who at the outset spurns him. It was endearing and refreshing to see a story of men who are attracted to large women. Vince Rizzo also has a secret in that before his marriage to Joyce he fathered a child and then left the mother. The son he had never met, Tony, (Steven Sttrait) winds up in prison. Without revealing his identity, Vince brings Tony into his home. The movie features a long denouement in which the family, and other associated characters level with each other and learn who they themselves, and the other people, each are.

City Island is an entertaining well-acted movie about the difficulty of knowing self and others. In an unpretentious way, it gets inside the feelings and dreams of its characters. But the movie also taught me about a place I hadn't seen or heard of before and made it come to life. I loved seeing it, and I found getting to know City Island the place the main attraction of this movie.

Robin Friedman

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