City Island

It seems inevitable that movies about family dysfunction always end up falling into the genre of comedy (or "dramedy" as some people prefer to call it). As much as there may be much suffering and negative stuff going on, family problems in cinema have been constantly geared towards making us laugh more than anything else. The reason why (in my opinion) films like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and THE SQUID AND THE WHALE are at the apex of the modern family dysfunction film is that they both do such a terrific job of mixing the humor with its characters' dark sides and at making that balance feel so real and seamless.

I don't have the slightest problem with CITY ISLAND in terms of the entertainment department. I didn't look at my watch a single time, which is rare, because I almost always do that when I'm watching a movie, as good as it may be. It is a completely engrossing film. With that said, though, it chooses the safe route of being just light-hearted fun and never getting into the nitty-gritty of some of the particularly dark subject matter that it's got going on. That's perfectly fine, because these characters are a delight to watch, but the fact that the film explores potentially disturbing issues yet chooses to never go deep into them will make you constantly remember that you're just watching a movie rather than seeing the uber-authentic portrait of family crisis that we get in the likes of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and THE SQUID AND THE WHALE.

Vince (Andy Garcia) and Joyce (Julianna Margulies) are married, and they have a daughter, Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido), who just recently started college, and a son Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller), who is still in high school. By day, Vince is a corrections officer (or a prison guard, as we'd call him, but he's not a fan of that term). By night, according to what he tells his wife, he's playing poker, even though he's actually taking an acting class, since being an actor has always been his lifelong dream. Joyce correctly suspects that Vince isn't being honest about his supposed poker games, but of course, she incorrectly suspects that Vince spends his nights cheating on her with another woman. Vivian got a full scholarship to college, but for reasons we don't find out till later, she had to leave school, and instead start working... as a stripper. Of course, her parents and brother have no clue about this, and she has to come home for a week under the pretense that she's on spring break from school. If this family already seems too screwed up, we haven't even gotten to the best part yet: the teenaged Vince Jr. has a fetish for overweight women, which becomes an even more severe issue when we discover that this family has a next-door neighbor who is, you guessed it, an overweight woman.

The above plot description seems like enough for a full-length film, doesn't it? Well, that's not all. During one of his days working at the prison, Vince discovers that one of the inmates is a son he had with another woman (before he ever met Joyce). This is Tony (Steven Strait), and as we find out, he thinks his real father is dead. Perhaps as a way to make up for his mistake, Vince decides to take Tony out of the prison and bring him as a guest to his already uber-dysfunctional house. Indie family comedy chaos ensues.

There are several moments in CITY ISLAND in which the editing is simply brilliant. The film will intercut between what is going on with one character to what is going on with the other, occasionally making for some truly hilarious transitions. Consider the moment in which we're watching the nice-laid back conversation between Vince and one of his acting classmates, Molly (Emily Mortimer) while frequently cutting back to young Vince sitting at home looking up his "preferred" type of porn online. Of course, everyone's secrets are bound to come out eventually and there's more than just a little contrivance and moments in which everything would be solved if someone spoke just a wee bit early, but none of that makes the film any less enjoyable to watch. When Vince finally gets a shot at an audition (for a Martin Scorsese movie!) and he initially attempts to do a Marlon Brando impression, one can't help but consider the irony in that it's Andy Garcia who is playing this character.

The climactic scene in which mostly everything is revealed hits a few wrong notes, but is overall solid. One of the particular touches I liked is that when Vivian reveals why she was kicked out of college, her mother doesn't react with a conventional "angry parent" response, but rather with an understanding "What?! Everybody does that!". I'm kind of curious about why little Vince's unorthodox sexual, um, appetite is given no treatment whatsoever during this scene, but I suppose they considered all the other secrets to be more important.

Andy Garcia is playing heavily against type here, but delivers a strong performance (his work at the audition truly has to be seen for how unexpectedly funny it is). The last I saw him in was in a brief role in the mediocre NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU, so it was good to see this afterwards. Julianna Margulies doesn't have much to do other than yell and be angry, but we suspect that not many could've pulled off this role as well as she does. Dominik Garcia-Lorido gets less screen time than her character deserved. I saw Ezra Miller a few months ago in the surprisingly deep and well-crafted AFTERSCHOOL in which he played a sullen, reticent boarding school kid; conversely, in CITY ISLAND, he delivers some hilariously acerbic lines (there's a scene in which the family of four plus Tony are at the table having lunch, and it's a fantastic scene thanks to Miller's rendition of his dialogue). But perhaps the biggest surprise in this movie comes from Steven Strait, who we saw looking like an Abercrombie & Fitch model four years ago in the terrible THE COVENANT, yet here he's all humble and scruffy (a welcome change). I appreciate the fact that the movie doesn't give in to conventionality much when Tony discovers that Vince is his real father. I was frustratingly waiting for the "You left me! You never looked out for me!" lines that we've heard a dozen times, and I'm glad that the film didn't feel the need to go through all those motions before wrapping up. I'd also like to add that Emily Mortimer is delightful as ever, as much as her role is more minor than anything else (and there's a hilarious moment in which her British accent gets made fun of).

CITY ISLAND is an easy-to-digest cinematic experience because it's got both laughs and pain, without ever letting the latter take over too much.

6/10