City Island

City Island is an isolated section of The Bronx that looks more like a Cape Cod fishing village than a New York City suburb. If you seek it out you'll probably be impressed by its rough edged charm and quaint feel or at least as close to quaint as New York City can get. So I guess it's got a lot in common with the small ensemble indie film of the same name. "City Island" is a diamond in the rough.
This film came out early in the year to a mixed bag of reviews, but it seemed to have legs. When I saw that it was still in the art houses some six or seven weeks after release, I knew audiences must be spreading the word, giving the film life long after the critics had placed it on life support. With independent film, I usually trust audiences at least as much as the arts and letters guys. Here the audiences are right.
Andy Garcia and Julianna Marguiles head an oddball New York family who make an art out of keeping secrets from each other. There's a college age daughter who is hitting the stripper pole harder than the books, a teen-age son who spends his time on sexy web sites watching oversize women "cook" in the kitchen and Garcia, who plays the prison guard patriarch who finds a son that no one knows about in the lock-up for grand theft auto. Dad is also attending regular "poker games" that make his wife more than a little suspicious. Turns out he's attending acting classes in the City taught by Alan Arkin. And they all smoke. The family expends a lot of effort keeping all these secrets from each other which means this film is a little plot heavy and relies on a fair amount of coincidence to keep all of it afloat. Yeah it's a stretch but by the time it all comes together you have pretty much bought in to the fun.
Every year it seems that the independent film circuit provides us with gems like "City Island". If you can't find it in art house near you, wait for pay-per-view, but see it and enjoy the ensemble as they take you to a part of New York City you've probably never been before.