Plot: A father who wants to be an actor, a mother who feels like her marriage is close to an end, a stripper daughter and her BBW obsessed brother and finally an unexpected "guest". This is the Rizzos, a family where everyone tries to hide their secrets from each other, until the truth finally breaks loose.
Independent films are a weird bunch. You would expect most of them to be less clichéd, more "deep", well written and fun to watch from all these freaking high-budget Hollywood crap. However most of them tend to be pseudo-intellectual, clichéd, badly written and boring films that desperately try to look special. But that's not the case with City Island.
City Island doesn't offend the viewers' intelligence because of a very simple reason it's disarmingly realistic and non-forcefully clever. Its characters are real ones, characters you've actually met in your daily life and not some macho\sexy\badass hero-type jerks that all they do is pose for the camera. Seeing them quarrel while dining will, more or less, remind you YOUR family quarrels where the build up tension results in a lot of misunderstandings and anger.
Furthermore we have some really good actors here, quite charismatic and very, very pretty but real-life pretty and not Photoshop pretty, (Julianna Margulies, woa!). Moreover they have excellent chemistry and truly look like they were living together all these years. The teenage son actually looks like a teenager and his sexuality isn't treated as something freakish. The daughter, even though is a stripper doesn't look like a slut, the main couple of the story isn't a typical too clean\too problematic movie couple but an actual husband and wife. Generally all characters are well-developed and fun to watch.
But what kind of movie is it? A drama? A comedy? Well for me its one of these movies that don't follow a specific genre. It's like real life. Drama & comedy seamlessly blend with each other. It's not black, it's not white and it's not grey. Is it funny? Yes, but not joke-funny it's character-funny, it's situation-funny. You won't fall down laughing while holding your stomach but the humour is there, it's subtle and it's clever. What about the drama involved? The movie will bring tears in your eyes, but not through the combination of cheap melodramatic music and cliché situations, but through the honest portrayal of the problems that the characters face in this film.
In the end though, this movie will not appeal to everyone. It's somewhat slow-paced, too realistic for some to enjoy and doesn't really go anywhere. It's just about how the secrets of all the family members and especially the father's will get unveiled. Well yeah, sure, its not the greatest film ever, but it's very entertaining and I recommend it to everyone seeking a nice non-Hollywood-ish film to have fun with.
FINAL VERDICT: Heart warming, cleverly funny and realistic comedy\drama (7.5/10)
[+] Realistic, non-clichéd characters and situations [+] Cleverly funny, honestly dramatic [+] Great acting
[-] Somewhat slow-paced [-] Not LOL-funny, not river-of-tears-dramatic
Also Check: Another Year (2010) – Biutifal (2010) – Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – Magnolia (1999)
Independent films are a weird bunch. You would expect most of them to be less clichéd, more "deep", well written and fun to watch from all these freaking high-budget Hollywood crap. However most of them tend to be pseudo-intellectual, clichéd, badly written and boring films that desperately try to look special. But that's not the case with City Island.
City Island doesn't offend the viewers' intelligence because of a very simple reason it's disarmingly realistic and non-forcefully clever. Its characters are real ones, characters you've actually met in your daily life and not some macho\sexy\badass hero-type jerks that all they do is pose for the camera. Seeing them quarrel while dining will, more or less, remind you YOUR family quarrels where the build up tension results in a lot of misunderstandings and anger.
Furthermore we have some really good actors here, quite charismatic and very, very pretty but real-life pretty and not Photoshop pretty, (Julianna Margulies, woa!). Moreover they have excellent chemistry and truly look like they were living together all these years. The teenage son actually looks like a teenager and his sexuality isn't treated as something freakish. The daughter, even though is a stripper doesn't look like a slut, the main couple of the story isn't a typical too clean\too problematic movie couple but an actual husband and wife. Generally all characters are well-developed and fun to watch.
But what kind of movie is it? A drama? A comedy? Well for me its one of these movies that don't follow a specific genre. It's like real life. Drama & comedy seamlessly blend with each other. It's not black, it's not white and it's not grey. Is it funny? Yes, but not joke-funny it's character-funny, it's situation-funny. You won't fall down laughing while holding your stomach but the humour is there, it's subtle and it's clever. What about the drama involved? The movie will bring tears in your eyes, but not through the combination of cheap melodramatic music and cliché situations, but through the honest portrayal of the problems that the characters face in this film.
In the end though, this movie will not appeal to everyone. It's somewhat slow-paced, too realistic for some to enjoy and doesn't really go anywhere. It's just about how the secrets of all the family members and especially the father's will get unveiled. Well yeah, sure, its not the greatest film ever, but it's very entertaining and I recommend it to everyone seeking a nice non-Hollywood-ish film to have fun with.
FINAL VERDICT: Heart warming, cleverly funny and realistic comedy\drama (7.5/10)
[+] Realistic, non-clichéd characters and situations [+] Cleverly funny, honestly dramatic [+] Great acting
[-] Somewhat slow-paced [-] Not LOL-funny, not river-of-tears-dramatic
Also Check: Another Year (2010) – Biutifal (2010) – Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – Magnolia (1999)