CITY ISLAND (2010) (***1/2)

This comedy comes from Raymond De Felitta, who made the wonderfully charming romance TWO FAMILY HOUSE. The title takes its name from the mile and a half island in the Bronx. It's a fishing town and seems completely alien to the rest of NYC. Each of the members of the film's central family seem completely alien to the other members. It's a film about secrets and how they bring unneeded chaos to this one family.

Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia, THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS) is keeping something from his family. He tells them that he's going to a weekly poker game, but really he's taking an acting class. His wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies, TV's THE GOOD WIFE) is pretty tough on him for being a prison guard. She also rides him for sneaking a smoke, despite the fact that she does the same. Oh, he has another secret. He has a grown son from a previous relationship that he walked out on and now that son Tony (Steven Strait, SKY HIGH) has been transferred to his prison for boosting cars.

So Vince tells Tony he knew his mother and is willing to have him released into his custody. Tony will help him put a bathroom in the shed in the backyard for his room and board. Joyce is pretty hard on him for bringing a con into their home. but can you blame her? Vince's kids with Joyce just look at him with indifference as normal. They have their own secrets to deal with. His daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido, THE LOST CITY) has lost her scholarship and gone into stripping to pay her tuition. In between snotty snipes, his son Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller, AFTERSCHOOL) has a BBW feeder fetish. If you don't know uiuuwhat that is just Google it and then clear your history so someone in your family doesn't think you have secrets.

The cast works in precision with De Felitta's hilarious dialogue. Comic scenes work their way to a perfect crescendo naturally. Each character is given a unique voice and they are played off each other to great affect.

Vince is a simple, quiet man with passion running deep, deep inside. He doesn't even know the depth of how much is there, but something inside is demanding that he express it somehow. When he does finally talk honestly he seems like he's coming out of left field, so Joyce reacts strongly to his seemingly strange requests and reactions. Vivian has learned to just keep quiet, while Vince Jr. is the exact opposite, loving the chance to rile everyone up. Tony takes in the craziness, wondering if prison might be a better place for him. And yet he quickly ingratiates himself to each family member and gets wrapped up in all their secrets whether he wanted to or not.

The same warmth and humanity De Felitta brought to TWO FAMILY HOUSE, which told the story a simple man whose dream to own his own bar was never supported by his family and friends, is brought here. He understands how average Joes feel and dream. The humor is amazingly timed for sure, but it also comes from astute observation of how these characters interact. The best compliment I can give the film is that I know these people and by the end I could anticipate their reactions. We laugh because we recognize our family and ourselves in them. Sometimes we feel like we're an island inside the cities we live in. But it doesn't have to be that way; we just have to find the right way to express ourselves.