Wednesday, December 22, 2010

True Grit

The Coen Brothers have become as much of a household name as Clorox bleach. Their original stories and unique style have always pushed the boundaries of conventional film making. However, their latest collaboration "True Grit" is more of a tributary inflexion of the classic Western movie than an innovative original story. Although it does posses the same renowned ambiance of a typical Coen movie, it simply is not as enthralling as one would expect from their creative stock. It does contain the usual elements of un-usual characters who find themselves in raunchy predicaments, but fails to surprise in the manner that most of their prior films have done so. Save an impressive performance by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, it simply is not as profound or staggering as one would expect from Joel and Ethan Coen. Nonetheless, it does capture a visual grander of the West that parallels such film greats as Martin Ritt's "Hud" and Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain". The movie was shot outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and around the rural areas of Granger and Austin, Texas. Though there are some very bountiful scenes of sweeping canyons and spacious desert fields, there are just as many scenes that are harsh and threatening. Such superb cinematography is no surprise coming from eight-time Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins; he incorporates just enough subtleties in each scene to create a phantasmal mood for the film, despite an impoverished storyline.

"True Grit" just isn't quite as ground breaking as "No Country For Old Men" was. Joel and Ethan adapted the script from Charles Portis' novel of the same name and is the second screen adaptation of his book. The first was done in 1969 which was directed by Henry Hathaway and starred John Wayne in an Oscar-winning performance. Despite both movies having the same storyline, the two films are vastly different from one another. There is after all a forty year generational difference between them. The first version failed to convey the harsh, and often violent, reality of the times and seemingly excluded a lot the situational humor of the novel. Ethan attributes this to the fact that the book was narrated in the first person from the perspective of Mattie Ross, a teenage girl on a mission of revenge, disguised as justice. The Coen's touch here adds an eccentric comic demeanor that lacked in the original version. They directly used many of the humdinger lines of Portis' novel which clearly added to the poise and presence the characters.

Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross
The film opens with the execution of Frank Ross by his hired hand Tom Chaney, played by Coen alum Josh Brolin, while the two are on an expedition to Fort Smith to buy some horses. Chaney robs Ross' corps of $150 and two gold pieces that he always carried for sentimental reasons, then flees into Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). This incident is projected in an erie blue overtone that creates a somber tone and sets the mood for the entire film. We soon enter upon Ross' fourteen year old daughter Mattie (Steinfeld) who ventures up from their Arkansas farm, accompanied only by an indentured servant, to settle her father's affairs and ensure justice of his untimely murder. Young actress Hailee Steinfeld almost immediately steals the movie away from her more famous costars. Steinfeld conveys a superlative sense of retribution underlined by vengeance as Mattie Ross. There is a great scene between Mattie and a horse trader named Colonel Stonehill (Dakin Matthews) where she insistently collects on her late father's dealings. It is at this moment that the audience quickly realize that this little girl is no one to be trifled with. Steinfeld was discovered through an open casting call that was put out seeking someone between the ages of 12 and 17 who looked simple in demeanor  but could convey "unusually steely nerves and a straightforward manner". Her performance is one of the few redeeming qualities of the film on the whole and merits high praise as one of the best supporting performances of the year.

Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn
After some investigation, Mattie learns that Chaney has joined an outlaw gang led by the infamous "Lucky" Ned Pepper, portrayed by Barry Pepper who ironically has the same last name. In order to ensure that Chaney is arrested and tried for her father's murder, she unwittingly seeks the assistance of the toughest U.S. marshal in the district, Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). He, however, turns out to be a scrupulous drunk whose unruly practices are being questioned by authorities in court. Nonetheless, Mattie is "searching for a man of true grit" and Cogburn fit her ideals of just such a bounty hunter. This is Bridges' first role since he winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a washed-up country music singer in Scott Cooper's "Crazy Heart". Similarly, western film icon John Wayne won his only Oscar for his turn as Rooster Cogburn in the original "True Grit". The part of Rooster Cogburn was quite a departure for Wayne, at the time, who was known for playing the straight-laced hero. But it still seemed like Wayne was playing Wayne. Such is not the case here with Bridges; it seems more like Bridges is playing Rooster. His interpretation of Rooster Cogburn is unique because he embraces more of the darker actions of this anti-hero character, which was precisely how Joel and Ethan depict him in their script.

Matt Damon as La Boeuf
Whilst waiting to hear whether or not Rooster accepts her commission, Mattie encounters upon a Texas ranger named La Boeuf (played by Matt Damon) who has already been tracking Chaney for the murder of a Texas state senator. Physically, he is very aloof, sporting a set of spurs that jingle louder than Santa's sleigh, and an overly grown mustache that practically turns him into a caricature. His introduction comes as a complete surprise to Mattie as she awakes from a bad dream to find him watching her sleep. Their initial impression of one another is not very high, particularly after Mattie receives a letter from Rooster that he has partnered with La Boeuf instead of her. Despite them trying to leave Mattie behind, she proves more tenacious and resourceful than they'd expected and eventually she becomes an accepted member of the posse. Damon's performance is decent enough and audiences will undoubtedly be drawn to the film because he is in it. Neither La Boeuf or Damon are hardly sidekick material. The wry ranger has issues and motives all of his own and his presence seemingly complicates matters more than it helps.

Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney
This unusual trio of bounty hunters begin to appreciate each other more and more, eventually developing a certain regard for one another. Particularly through their various encounters with villains Tom Chaney and Lucky Ned Pepper. Brolin is no stranger to gritty character roles, having previously portrayed the sinister Dr. William Block in Robert Rodriguez's "Grind House" as well as the malevolent city supervisor Dan White in Gus Van Sant's biopic "Milk". Although he doesn't get much screen time here, the significance of Chaney in the overall plot carries his presence throughout most every scene. Brolin is ruthless and barbarous as Chaney, and we have little empathy for him. Lucky, on the other hand, grants us slightly more compassion, despite being on the other side of the law. Barry Pepper is one of those actors whom, in my opinion, is vastly underrated. This is mainly because the roles he plays are not principal parts and he is often overshadowed by more renowned actors. Two such films that come to mind are "The Green Mile" and "Saving Private Ryan". Still, as small as his part may be here once again, he still leaves an impact as the gang leader with an unlikely sense of humanity.

Steinfeld with Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper
The character of Mattie is herself a portraiture of feminism during a such raw period in history when codes of honor governed society rather than abstract law. In film, women of that era are typically depicted as frail homemakers or immoral prostitutes. We rarely ever see a woman characterized as a cowboy on screen, let alone a female protagonist in a Western. "When you introduce women into that kind of world, something very interesting happens and you have an interesting dynamic straight away," states Emmy Award-winner Simon Moore who wrote the original screenplay for "The Quick and the Dead". Mattie's predicament is actually very similar to Moore's character The Lady (played by Sharon Stone in the film) who joins a dueling competition in order avenge her father's death at the hands of the self-proclaimed sheriff of the town Redemption. While Mattie certainly is no gunfighter herself, she realizes the importance of carrying a weapon of her own and the kind of power that it ensues. And like The Lady, Mattie is no conventional woman by any means. She is aggressive and rambunctious in her own right and governs herself in the same manner. Fourteen years old or not, for any woman living in the Old West this is profoundly prodigious. And although the apolitical Coens were not trying to foster a movie about feminism in any right, the implications behind the character of Mattie cannot be be ignored, whether intentional by the film makers or not.

Steinfeld and Damon
The Coen Brothers films have always demanded attention, but they did not receive real critical recognition until 1996 with "Fargo". And although they directed and produced that film separately, they wrote the screenplay collaboratively. Since then, they have worked on every film together as writers, producers, and directors jointly. People have often referred to Joel and Ethan Coen as “the bicephalous director” (the two-headed director). Many actors who have worked with the brothers have said that more often than not, the two have the same ideas and responses for various scenes and questions. Yet, their "two-headed" approach to "True Grit" might very well have been a deteriorating factor for the film on the whole. Though it is a more faithful adaptation than Henry Hathaway's initial version was in 1969, the movie itself brings little that hasn't been seen before from similar westerns or tales of vengeance.
Joel & Ethan Coen
"True Grit" seems to fulfill a more commercial compulsion than a creative one, which is not necessarily a criticism. Movies are after all a business and "if it doesn't make money, then it wasn't worth making." Although "No Country For Old Men" proved that the Coens could achieve both acclamation and financial success, it unfortunately might have been their fluke exception. Their last film "A Serious Man" brought in a mere $31 million and was essentially a box office failure, despite being highly praised by critics and honored with two Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. This seems to be the Coen Curse: if the movie is substantial and innovative without any big name actors attached then it is probably a fantastic movie, or if it carries a star studded cast and does well financially, then it is probably mediocre in comparison to their other works. So once again, we are upon a Coen Brothers film that does carry a few high profile names, yet lacks the overall creative spirit and imaginativeness that audiences have come to value them for.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Bottom Line: Not your quaint-essential Coen Brothers piece, but entertaining in its own right. Hailee Steinfeld's performance alone is worth seeing.


Johnny Cash: "God's Gonna Cut You Down"

Friday, November 19, 2010

Made In Dagenham

The tag line from Sony Pictures Classics for the film is "An ordinary woman achieves something extraordinary." What it really should read is "extraordinary actors in an ordinary movie". Perhaps my expectations were too high, but when I hear about a film set against the working women's labor struggle of 1960's England, that screams highly developed plot and high caliber performances—one would think. The story is based upon the true to life struggle of 187 female machinist workers at the Ford Motor Factory in Dagenham, England who went on a labor strike to gain equal salaries to that of their male counterparts. It loosely focuses upon one woman in particular, Mrs. Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins) who unassumingly becomes the spokeswoman for her co-workers at the instance of their sympathetic union representative Albert Hopkins (Bob Hoskins). While the film itself does address the issues of woman's labor suffrage during that period, it fails to convey a dire sense of personal turmoil or the struggle of the working class, female or otherwise. I almost entirely fault the screenwriter, William Ivory, for this. After all, it is his original script here. However, one cannot disclude the major role that Director Nigel Cole had in translating Ivory's words onto the screen. Overall, the film is anticlimactic and very predictable.

When considering Cole's prior works like "Saving Grace", this surprise-free feature is a disappointing surprise in itself. His approach mimics the same manufactured uplift he presented in "Calendar Girls". Audiences have become accustomed to the way he surrounds his characters and conveys their individual quirkiness on camera. This just wasn't the case with "Made In Dagenham". There is much potential for Rita and several of the other supporting characters to come alive on screen, but for the most part, this just doesn't happen. And it is not because of the lack of quality acting ability, but rather due to the weak situations put forth in general. The film only lightly touches upon the struggles of these women. While I do understand Cole's intent to keep the overall tone light and comedic, this mild approach to the circumstances only lessons the audience's regard for the characters. Even the main protagonist Rita's situation is pretty mundane and easy to foretell. How can Cole expect us to empathize with these women, if we aren't ever extensively exposed to their personal grief or individual disquietude. Films like Stephen Daldry's "Billy Eliot" or Peter Cattaneo's "The Full Monty" were such great movies because they encompassed the characters as they cooped with their circumstances set against a worker's strike. "Made In Dagenham" however does just the opposite as the strike itself leads the plot, making the characters seem secondary in the overall storyline.

Sally Hawkins as strike leader Rita O'Grady
We really only scratch the surface with the central protagonist of Rita O'Grady. The character herself is a composite of personas of several different real life woman of the time. We witness Rita as she interacts with various high level officials, motivates her coworkers to believe in themselves, and unknowingly overpowers her husband, but we never really gain true insight into her psyche. Everything just kind of happens to her, and because she accepts it, so do we. One would think that the very circumstances of a strike would entice some genuine melodrama and contention, but it doesn't. At least, it's not expressed here. Like I mentioned before, this is not because of talentless actors or poor screen performances that the movie falls short. Sally Hawkins does seemingly carry the movie single-handedly, despite such a monotoned storyline. She fosters a quietly confident and sympathetic Rita, establishing her as the backbone of everyone in her life, not just among her fellow co-workers but within her own family as well. It is her mildly spoken leadership that becomes the driving force behind the entire strike. And Hawkins makes the most of what Mrs. O'Grady's character has to offer. Not since her performance as the optimistic school teacher Poppy in Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" have we seen Hawkins take such command of a role. She maintains a lighthearted assertion that ultimately dictates the pliable mood of the entire film, as bland as that mood may be.

Daniel Mays as Eddie O'Grady & 
Thomas Arnold as Martin at work in the factory.
The closest thing to real strife occurs when Rita's husband Eddie (Daniel Mays) confronts her about what the strike is doing to their family and to their marriage. "This is being on strike! You run out of cash and you end up screaming at each other," proclaims Eddie. This is a peak point in the film because it is one of the only times we see how both Rita and Eddie are emotionally effected by all that is going on. Though it hardly has the same kind family turmoil of "Norma Rae" and only has a minor impact on the overall application for the film. Mays himself stretches his acting legs here and creates a realistic sense of who Eddie O'Grady is. While we have seen his talents before in such films as "All or Nothing" and "Vera Drake", this might be Mays' most visible role to date. His portrayal of Eddie as a conscientious objector who initially is just trying his best to humor his wife and maintain their home life, shows his versatility as an actor. He comes off as a generally supportive husband to Rita, as we witness him assuming household responsibilities while Rita is out making the rounds. That is until it starts to effect his own livelihood. Then we finally get to see some interpersonal conflict on screen, even if only for a brief scene.

There are two secondary characters that parallel Rita in the film: Secretary of State Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson) and the wife of Ford's head of industrial relations Lisa Hopkins (Rosamund Pike). Each widen the perspective of the role of women during that time by conveying two vastly contrasting characters. This wittingly allows the audience to interpret the social predicaments of the era, but in the same sense acts as an overall distraction to the struggling female machinists. There just isn't enough of a connection between either Mrs. Hopkins or Secretary Castle and Rita. But they do contribute to the film's overall humor, despite having little significance to the plot itself.

Rosamund Pike as Lisa Hopkins
Nonetheless, probably the most noteworthy portrayal of strong emotional conviction comes from Rosamund Pike. Her turn as Lisa Hopkins, the largely overlooked wife of Ford's high-powered executive Peter Hopkins, is nothing short of magnanimous. Pike steals just about every seen she is in, and damn near steals the entire movie from Hawkins. But her character's overall significance in the story itself is too minute to allow that to happen. Still, Pike captures the tone of the era to the tee with a quietly unaccepting bitterness of how women were regarded by society. In a captivatingly endearing scene where Lisa tries to encourage Rita to push forward with her strike efforts, the discounted Cambridge-educated housewife exclaims "I'm 31 years old, I have a first-class honors degree from one of the greatest universities in the world, and my husband treats me like a fool." Her character provides an external perspective of just how poorly women were regarded. It is unfortunate however that the same kind of interrelation doesn't occur with Rita or any of the other characters.

Miranda Richardson as Secretary of State Barbara Castle
Secretary of State Barbara Castle represents the government perspective of the entire situation at hand. Miranda Richardson consistently delivers witty dialog with heartfelt humor. This is a surprising change of pace for the actress whose previous acclamations, such as her role as Richard Gere's aggrieved wife in "Damage" or as the wife of renowned poet T.S. Eliot in "Tom & Viv", were highly dramatic and emotional intense. The character in itself represents a small contradiction to both the film and the period, because women rarely held any kind of significant office or had much authority to speak of. It simply wasn't commonplace in those days. And while Secretary Castle was certainly no Hillary Clinton, she did bare a very significant role in the overall movement towards sexual equality in the workplace. And she was a significant instigator in Parliament of the Equal Pay Act of 1970 which prohibited any less favorable treatment between men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment.

It is because of this feminist depiction on screen that "Made In Dagenham" will most likely appeal to audiences of middle-class women. Women who are proactive about their individuality and financial independence. And this very aspect alone opens a very significant window about feminist portrayal in the cinema. Why is it that such a film will probably be seen by mainly women? It's certainly not because Hollywood cinema still stereotypes women by portraying them as "suffering under male domination", as suggested by Professor Shohini Chaudhuri of the Department of Literature at the University of Essex. With all due respect to Prof. Chaudhuri, this is not 1970 anymore and women have certainly earned their place both in society and on the big screen. I am not claiming ignorance here; the power struggles of the female sex did, and probably does still in lesser circles, exist. However, there is much to be said about the approach that the director does himself take in regards to this feminist portrayal on screen.

Albert (Bob Hoskins) motivating the female machinist workers.
In an early scene, Bob Hoskins' character Albert enters the warehouse where the women have stripped down to their undergarments to endure the immense heat of the intense summer weather and poor factory conditions. Albert shrieks "Oh my God!" in disbelief when he sees them and quickly covers his eyes. The camera continuously follows him as he makes his way through a room without censorship and in fact turns the situation of these half-naked women into a humorous jest. This is a prime example of Cole's attempt to lesson the impact of a predominant "male gaze" and introduces an atmosphere where men are the ones who are embarrassed, and the women act out as assertive and confident. Hoskins delivers his usual adoration here as a sentimental union rep who reminisces of his own childhood where his mother single-handedly raised and supported him under very similar circumstances. Hoskins is so jolly and charming here in such a selfless manner that one cannot help but like him. And he makes it more and more difficult to criticize him on any level; it reminds me greatly of Hilary Swank and her mass appeal among Academy members.

According to Philosophy Professor Cynthia Freeland of the University of Huston, feminist film theory is founded upon "the feminist claim that men and women are differentially positioned by cinema: men as subjects identifying with agents who drive the film's narrative forward, women as objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing." There is another scene involving Jaime Winstone's character Sandra where she seemingly abandons the cause by agreeing to pose for a professional photo shoot for the Ford Motor Company. Despite her quirky response of painting "Equal Pay for Women" across her midsection, the very scene merely objectifies her as being inferior and as a lesser commodity. It's these kind of improbably anecdotes that ultimately weaken the significance of these female characters. The very notion that they could convert one of the striking workers with an unfounded promise of a fashion career is preposterous. Not so much because Sandra could be swayed, but that the Ford Motor Company would go to such lengths at all. Because Ivory fails to create characters with intrinsic depth, all the audience has to rely on are the meagerly addressed events of the story like that one.

There is another scene where the women set out to publicly protest on Parliament's front lawn. They fumble about as they attempt to organize their picket line and go public with their message that women deserve sexual equality in the workplace. Haphazardly, their banner displays only half of that statement and appears to say "we want sex". While this was an actual mishap that occurred at the time, this scene does little to convince the audience to take them or their cause seriously, and actually just objectifies them more.

When discussing the film with several other patrons and openly conveying the fact that I did not like the film, a female colleague of mine interjected that "it's probably just not your kind of film". I greatly resented that statement because, contrary to the movie itself, it was entirely "my kind of film". Another female viewer proclaimed that my disappointment was the result of my extreme "Hollywood story" expectations. That too was a gross generalization on her part. I didn't dislike the movie because it was about women; I didn't like the movie because it failed to execute a rousing character-driven story about a subject that most certainly had the vision to exhilarate precisely that. Maybe it isn't fair to expect the emotional zeal of "Norma Rae" or the serious sexual predicaments put forth in "North Country"; but when dealing with a narrative of such a dramatic nature, how can one discard the drama?

One of the most compelling scenes of the entire movie comes at the very end, when footage of the real life woman machinists are displayed as the closing credits roll; so perhaps this story is better suited to be a documentary. The film seemingly aims to escape the real life theatrics of this fervid story. Cole is just overly cloying in his approach to the circumstances of a poverty stricken working class society. And as a result, "Made In Dagenham" fails to impose its political issues upon the audience or excite any kind of emotions for them. In a word, it's just plain dull. Although Sally Hawkins and Rosamond Pike give praiseworthy performances and the very subject of sexual inequality in the workplace is intrinsically stimulating, it is still not enough to turn a mediocre script into a great movie.

Rating: ★ ★
Bottom Line: An anticlimactic piece that sadly doesn't entice much thought or emotion. Extremely disappointing considering the historic premise of the story and the best efforts of the cast.

Friday, March 19, 2010

City Island

Everyone in the world probably thinks that their family is a little peculiar. Well the Bronx family portrayed in Raymond De Felitta’s new feature film takes that presumption to a whole other level. The Rizzo Family is probably a lot like your own family in the sense that they too conceal a lot of intimate details from one another. De Felitta wrote and directed this story about how misguided assumptions can tear apart even the closest of relatives. Based on the previews, it seemed that this was a modern satire along the same lines as Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. I was wrong to make such a generalization of the film. While there are a great number of hilarious scenes and circumstances in the movie, it stands out as more of a family dramedy than anything else. As we watch the members of the Rizzo clan, we discover that neuroticism as we know it, is nothing compared to that of these folks. Everybody has a secret that they are keeping, but the dramatics escalate when those secrets start to affect everyone else.

The movie itself premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival last July and won the Heineken Audience Award. I recently got the chance to meet De Felitta at a screening that was held at the IFC Center in Manhattan a few weeks ago, where he freely discussed City Island with active members of the Producers Guild. He described the film as a “labor of love” and a collaborative effort of many, particularly the actors. Apparently there are several improvised segments of dialog that appears in the final cut that were completely created by the actors; including one of the scenes with Academy Award-Winner Alan Arkin who plays a knavish acting teacher criticizing his student’s methods.

Alan Arkin as Michael Malakov
Anyone who has ever been to City Island could safely say that it is a sleepy little community on the outskirts of the outskirts of the Big City. As a predominantly blue-collar fishing town, the area retains much of its personality from its residents. There are two common phrases that are highlighted early on in the film: Clam Digger and Mussel Sucker. A Clam Digger is someone who was born and raised on City Island and who has lived their entire life there. A Mussel Sucker is anyone else who immigrated there from somewhere else. It’s New England-esque demeanor and obscurity alone accounts for much of the overall ambiguousness of the film. The island itself is only a few miles long and about three-quarters of a mile wide. It has a profound history of being a shipbuilding center for some of our country’s greatest vessels, including some prominent World War II battleships. This is the unique setting of De Felitta’s story that centralizes around an atypical Italian-American family that fights about everything imaginable, but deep-down really loves and cares about each other despite it all.

Andy Garcia as Vince Rizzo
The patriarch of the Rizzo Family is Vince Rizzo, portrayed by Andy Garcia, who is experiencing a midlife crisis. Like most everyone else in his life, he has some sense of dissatisfaction with his current situation. He works as a “corrections officer”, not merely a prison guard as he adamantly points out throughout the film. But what Vince really aspires to be is an actor. He has secretly been taking a regular acting class in Manhattan without anyone in his family knowing about it. And resorts to reading his various acting books while perched out of a skylight in the family bathroom. Vince is particularly fond of Marlon Brando and even goes as far as mimicking him at his first ever film audition. Most audiences are not used to seeing Garcia in comedic roles. He nonetheless delivers as the working-class aspiring actor who is trying to reconnect with his family, his entire family. Most everyone at some point in their life has sought something or someone that seemed out of reach. Garcia successfully conveys this simple-minded guy Vince who wants something more than he has, but is still very uncertain about himself because of his circumstances of being a Clam Digger.

Julianna Margulies as Joyce, with Dominik García-Lorido as Vivian
Vince has been lying about taking this acting class to his wife Joyce, played by Julianna Margulies. As far as she thinks, whenever Vince goes out, he is at his regular poker game. But soon starts to suspect otherwise, when she tries to contact him at work on the very same day he calls in “sick” so that he can attend an open call audition for a new Martin Scorsese picture. To fuel her suspicions,  when she discovers that Vince has been hiding his friendship with a female classmate (Emily Mortimer), Joyce presumes the worst. So begins needless turmoil and heartache on her part because she assumes that her husband is cheating on her. It has been a while since we have seen Margulies in any kind of role. She came out of a suto retirement to do this film after Garcia personally asked her to get involved. Her big screen comeback exposes yet another facet of the Emmy Award –winning actress’ talents. Despite the fact that the audience knows the truth about what is actually going with Vince, we still feel sympathy for Joyce’s circumstance because of the emotional duress crafted by Margulies. As a middle-aged housewife it is easy to understand why Joyce would feel neglected and spiteful. Though it is understandable that this situation could easily be misconstrued by anyone, all it really reinforces are the stereotypes that husbands are completely ignorant of the emotional sensibilities of their wives, and that wives are irrational when it comes to matters of the heart and more often than not jump to the wrong conclusions.

Steven Strait as Tony
To her detriment, Joyce takes a keen interest in Tony (Steven Strait), the ex-convict who Vince takes into their home as part of his parole because he is his son. No one else knows that he is his biological child though, not even Tony himself. In his mind, Vince is just a prison guard doing him a favor because he knew his mother once upon a time. And that is the same explanation that Vince gives his family. The plot thickens when Joyce become attracted to him, which is easy to understand considering that he spends much of his time working without a shirt on and that she thinks her husband has been cheating on her. This situation directly parallels Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. As we watch the extent of their physical involvement develop, we can predict that trouble is arising with a capitol T. Strait himself is a relative newcomer to the film industry, whose most prominent role was as the main hunter D’Leh in Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC. In City Island however, we get to see more than just physical acting from him. Strait shows great promise here and hopefully he won’t waste his potential doing aimless adolescent roles in purely box office driven teen movies. 

Ezra Miller as Vince Jr., aka Vinnie
Vince and Joyce’s two children Vivian and Vinnie (Ezra Miller & Dominik García-Lorido) each have their own share of secrets. Vivian who is supposedly home on Spring Break has been working as a stripper in lieu of being a college student. She is Andy Garcia’s real life daughter and seemingly had no problems countering her dad on screen. Vinnie has an unusual fetish for large fat women and spends most of his time fantasizing about his neighbor and other obese women on the Internet. According to De Felitta, they kept adding more and more screen time for Miller because he was charismatically contributing hilarious improvisations during the filming. It seems that the whole Rizzo family is lying about one thing or another. Which is the unifying plot point of the entire film.

The movie on the whole conveys the most unlikely of circumstances and still presents genuine emotion for the characters. It is not purely a situational comedy though, and De Felitta takes the audience on an entertaining roller coaster ride of human predicament. Garcia, who was also a producer on the film, was very pleased with his collaborative efforts with the director, “We became partners in the movie, and went on this journey together. We have similar sensibilities.” In all, there is a pretty basic story line going on here, despite the intentionally convoluted twists and turns. The film itself never looses sight on its characters and justly earns its classification as a dramatic-comedy. Enjoyable and entertaining from start to finish, I believe that most viewers will be able to identify with the fact that we all have secrets of our own.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Bottom Line: A charming story about a dysfunctional family laced with endearing little twists. A tad predictable but still fun nonetheless!