City Island is a square mile of the Bronx in New York City, a little fishing community where Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) lives with his tempestuous wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) and their children Vivian and Vince Jr.
Vince Snr is a prison guard, but is taking acting classes on the sly, telling Joyce that it’s actually his poker night. She believes the “poker night” story to be a cover for an affair. Vivian is believed to be at college but is working as a stripper having been kicked out and comes home for a week when it is assumed she is on spring break. Vince Jr is interested in a website offering him the chance to watch bigger women and his attempt to strike up a conversation with a larger female classmate is mistaken for unkindness. On top of all of this, Vince Snr has found his estranged son Tony from a previous relationship, who is allowed out on parole for the final 30 days of his grand theft auto sentence if released into the custody of a close family member. Except Vince hasn’t told Tony that he is his father.
*****
City Island is another one of these under-seen gems, seemingly made on a modest budget, with plenty of talent on both sides of the camera and aside from its obvious indie pedigree and occasional lack of incident it is difficult to understand why it failed to find a wider audience.
Garcia is on producer duties as well and clearly his name has helped the film to be made, though that is no slight on the film at all. The acting is affecting, evocative and engaging across the board and just goes to show that with a little care a very talented cast and crew can be assembled on relatively meagre resources (its overall budget of $6m was just about covered by its US box office receipts). Margulies in particular is on great form, constantly simmering away before accelerating to a deafening scream on very little provocation. The entire family is constantly combustible, niggling and then yelling at each other at every turn, but it never feels like hysterical histrionics, or melodrama, rather a realistic representation of volatile people with short fuses.
Each member of the family is given time to breathe and although we expect Garcia and Margulies to hit the right notes, everyone pulls their weight. Emily Mortimer has a key role as a member of Vince’s acting class, conveying genuine enthusiasm and support when Vince stumbles upon his big break (an audition for a Scorsese picture) and managing to be quirky and charming without over egging the pudding. There is great humour to be found in the drawing together of the threads of each secret as the finale brings everything to an almighty crescendo, but the laughs are touching rather than crass, the humour deriving from believable scenarios rather than extraordinary impossibilities.
Although as noted above there is a bit of a dearth of incident in the film, the pacing never sags. The story has drive and momentum to it and feels like a cohesive whole, rather than a series of unconnected conversations or vignettes. The stand-out scene is undoubtedly Garcia’s audition, as he begins with an ill-advised Brando impersonation, before fluffing his audition and then getting a last chance to convey something more authentic. An actor playing a prison guard playing a wannabe actor, auditioning for a role in a Scorsese film in New York might sound a bit meta, but there is none of the self-referential, ironic nonsense that could unbalance the tone of the film. It is played straight, with a consistently light-hearted but engaging tone and keeps your attention and interest with ease.
A mention ought also to go to Ezra Miller as Vince Jr. At first we’re not sure where his preoccupation with plus size women is going, but he plays the role with such an intelligent balance of sass, flippancy and endearment that it is hard not to like him more and more as the film progresses. His arc is one of the more intriguing in the film and although few would enjoy tussling with Vince Jr at the dinner table when he’s in a bad mood, he is a great character to enjoy in a family comedy/drama like this.
You can rent or buy City Island from Monday 28th March 2011 on LoveFilm and you should find it well worthwhile. Be advised the trailer below is a little spoilerific.
[Rating:4/5]
DVD Extras: A round table discussion with writer/director Raymond De Felitta, Garcia, Margulies, Steven Strait (Tony) and Dominik García-Lorido (Vivian), which sheds some helpful light on City Island as a place and how they each feel about their characters, followed by a bunch of deleted/alternate/extended scenes which for the most part were wisely cut, except perhaps for an extended final monologue from Garcia which proves quietly touching.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V8ldV0jSdY’]
