City Island

There’s this island in the Hudson. It’s called City Island, and it’s technically part of the Bronx, but it seems like a whole other world from the rest of that borough. It’s bucolic, with fishermen and working class folk living alongside newcomers who must have paid in the millions for the waterfront homes they’ve purchased there.

There’s a family on this island, the Rizzos. The parents yell at the kids and at one another, everybody smokes in secret (thinking everyone else has quit), and they seem to have settled into a comfortably dysfunctional groove. Andy Garcia, the father in the tableau, has a secret: the illegitimate son he abandoned long ago. Now, the grown-up son is in trouble. Garcia brings him home. Revelations impend.

The illegitimate son serves two purposes in this film: he provides dramatic tension (For how long can Garcia hide his past?) and dramatic complication (Will the son, unaware of his bloodline, sleep with his stepmother or half sister or both?). These keep us interested while everyone else in the family finds themselves and their collective identity. Not to say that finding oneself and one’s collective identity is inherently boring, but there’s nothing like a bomb under the table to keep those not directly involved in the finding interested in the proceedings.

And how do the proceedings go? Well, they struck me as quite writerly. Everyone harbors a dramatic secret. There’s a quirky neighbor. Nobody stutters or says the wrong thing – in fact, they all seem to speak in modulated tones of the writer’s voice.

That’s not to say this is a bad film. I liked this family and I cared about how they’d (inevitably) work things out. Garcia’s terrific, Julianna Margulies (as the Mater) provides a carefully tuned performance, and Emily Mortimer (as one of many catalysts) is every bit as good you’d expect. But they never felt quite real, going through their crises on their charming little island. Nevertheless, I wish them well. Warts and all, they’re a lovely family.