Cast Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait, Andy Garcia
Director Raymond De Felitta
Rating 15+
Corrections Officer and nominal patriarch Vince Rizzo sees something of himself in a recently arrived inmate at the prison where he works. This makes sense because this particular prisoner, Tony, happens to be his long-lost son. And so, relying on a convenient legal technicality, Vince takes Tony into his own custody, bringing him home to live in his uncompleted boathouse.
Despite continuing to obscure the fact that Tony is his son, a fact that Vince has never admitted to anyone, he finds himself in dire straits when Tony’s arrival begins to unravel a carefully crafted family dynamic of denial and avoidance. All of which on its own might be enough for a script, but nothing is uncomplicated in the Rizzo family, and Vince’s wife, youngest son (Vince Jr) and daughter all have secrets of their own, which they guard carefully in their home on City Island.
City Island, the actual place, is a bit of anomaly. A one square mile sand spit set apart from the surrounding Bronx, it is an oasis of tranquillity in a New York City borough that is synonymous with rude noises and the Yankees baseball empire. But while
City Island isn’t a character in the film, in the way a sense of place so often dominates movies set in New York, it serves as a metaphor for the Rizzo family, who harbour hidden sensitivities in a world of rough edges.
At first glance, it’s hard to like the Rizzo family, whose sarcasm, lying, and yelling seem to be based on only the most clichéd concept of native New Yorkers – no not the neurotic Woody Allen types, but the other New Yorkers not-so-affectionately known as bridge and tunnel, i.e. not from upscale Manhattan. The Rizzos are loud, self-centred and stubborn, but through the course of the film we come to see that they also love one another deeply.
If this sounds familiar it’s because City Island belongs to a continuum of family dramas, all set in New York, that counts The Brothers McMullen and the far superior Moonstruck among its stylistic adherents. But while those films were fresh and exciting when they came out, City Island is comfortably recognisable, though not trite.
Andy Garcia gives a typically solid performance as Vince, but in basing the film so heavily on his character we are a bit short changed when it comes to the talented Julianna Margulies, who is under utilised here. While City Island crams perhaps too much into its 110 odd minutes, we’re still left with a film that is engaging despite its faults.
