Friday Films: City Island

The theater I work for recently started showing City Island, a new comedy starring Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, and Emily Mortimer (also Alan Arkin).  It's a hit, as far as small, limited-release independent films go, and despite the very small ad campaign--I've seen one commercial and one print ad--people are coming from miles away to see it based on recommendations from friends and family.  I saw it a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it; it's a short, light comedy with a lot of exaggerated yelling between family members and Andy Garcia playing a type that I don't think he gets to play much, the working-class family man.  In its first weekend here, it made more money on Saturday night than "Sex and the City 2." 

The plot revolves around a corrections officer who is secretly taking an acting class; he tells his wife that he goes to a poker game every week, and she thinks he's having an affair.  He brings home a prisoner for a month as part of an acting exercise, to tell your deepest secret.  The prisoner is his son, who he has never met.  Things start to escalate towards the ridiculous as the film progresses, and the end of the movie culminates in all of the plot points coming together right as Garcia's character lands his first acting gig, in a Scorcese film. 

It's just over an hour and a half long, and I think the script is incredibly efficient at fitting a lot into this running time.  At times it borders on too much, and I think I could have done without the character of Andy Garcia's youngest son (not the prisoner) and it would not have changed the movie all that much.  The kid himself is really annoying, and his plot has no relation to the rest of the narrative.  It's almost like the director realized this, too, because during the climactic scene he is set apart from the action and doesn't participate.  The rest of the plots wrap up in a scene that occurs in the family's house on City Island and just outside of it, which is the funniest point in the movie. 

Because it's a small movie, it's going to be on DVD in August, and for some reason I find that a little disappointing.  It just seems too soon, and I think that this could have been one of those small movies that continues to grow its audience over a longer run.  If a theater near you has it, go check it out while it's still there.