Ryan's Rating: 9/10
Director: Raymond De Felitta
Writer: Raymond De Felitta
Starring: Andy Garcia, Juliana Marguiles
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Dramedy
The Rizzo family lives on City Island, a small fishing island that's part of the Bronx, where everyone has secrets, from smoking to passions. This film explores the idea of secrets and the consequences of keeping secrets from your family and your spouse. In addition, this movie examines passion and opening yourself up to your family to be comfortable with who you are.
This is essentially the film equivalent of a situation comedy. The audience watches the gaffes and misunderstandings between all the characters that becomes more complicated and more involved as the movie goes on. The acting is excellent with Andy Garcia playing with an excellent City Island accent. The film moves quickly and has as many touching moments as it does comedic moments. The film provides a lot of humorous moments that are laugh-out-loud funny, while at the same time having some serious moments. It's a nice balance between an outright comedy and a very serious drama.
I loved this movie from the beginning to the end and I thought it was one of the best movies of the year. The characters were interesting and complicated but completely believable. The acting was excellent and I felt so connected to the characters I forgot there was acting involved. I liked that the plot was well developed and therefore the elements of the plot easily and logically flowed together into a very cohesive story about secrets and honesty. I thought the characters were all likable even though they were all flawed in different ways. The characters felt real and honest, despite the secrets they're keeping. It feels so honest because universally everyone has secrets and so it's easy to relate to the story and the characters. I think this is filmmaking at it's best and I recommend it to everyone.
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