Simple can be grand and, in the case of “City Island,” it is spectacular. It is a film beautiful?in its simplicity and wonderful in its humanity, showcasing all the flaws and shortcomings and wonderful secrets that?constitute?what it means to be human — all for a raucous amount of?heartfelt?laughter.
“Island” is nearly perfect in its level of minute detail, expertly homing in on the bull’s-eye, postage-stamp universe of City Island, a Bronx suburb in New York City. It is so incredibly specific that it couldn’t possibly be more universal.?
Actor Andy Garcia is Vincent Rizzo, a hard-working family man born and raised in City Island. Like every member of his family, he has a secret — perhaps even several. Under the guise of poker games, Vince has been taking acting lessons.?
Every member of Vince’s family operates with their own unique and enthralling guise, each hiding a different kind of secret. Vincent’s wife Joyce, played to perfection by Julianna Margulies, feels?unappreciated?and suspicious of her husband. His son, Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller), is secretly a chubby-chasing “feeder.” His daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) was kicked out of school and is earning a living as a stripper. Each member is oblivious to the secrets of everyone else, all struggling with their own deception and all running in circles around one another, never touching and forever in motion.?
And all this chaos is just the status quo. It’s disrupted when Vincent’s bigger secret, an ex-con named Tony (Steven Strait) who, along with everyone else, doesn’t know he’s really Vincent’s son, comes to live with them under the guise of helping Vince out as a handy man. Like the rest, this particular secret is deliciously toyed with as the characters grasp in the dark, totally oblivious that they are?inadvertently?stumbling towards each other.?
In “Island,” writer/director Raymond De Felitta channels the best kind of Shakespearean comedy with drama, intrigue and an incredibly powerful and funny catharsis. Until they reach that point, the plot is ripe with the down-to-earth humor of the inconsistencies and secrets of everyday people hiding the reality of themselves behind their everyday lives. Each character knows only their own reality, and every level of the comedy of secrets is achieved at their hilarious expense. ??
This is very much a character-driven story about family. It is?a family of people who barely know each other, and slowly catch one another in their gravity and secrets, all to the delight of the audience. They are?quirky and?dysfunctional?and thoroughly confused by their own lives. And we love them for it. Each is grounded, real and spectacularly quirky, and made all the quirkier by how real they are and how well we know them.
Adopting Bronx accents that never sound forced, the characters are completely at home in City Island and in the very same environment that completely mystifies them in the best possible way.?Every actor puts out a finely tuned, thoroughly convincing performance.?
Garcia in particular is superb as a man who doesn’t think he has an acting bone in his body. Yet he aspires to become something he is not, never realizing that this is the mark of an actor.?
“City Island” never grates, never panders and never fails to be funny. The theater regularly erupts with laughter to humor that never feels the need to descend into mindless?stupidity. The plot is engaging and vivid with all the right kinds of humorous interconnectivity. Everybody lies and nobody knows it except for a smiling audience.?
You can reach this staff writer at bkoenig@theeagleonline.com.
