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 Kelly Macdonald |
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Two Family House starts out like a period sitcom - 1950s
Staten Island blue-collar Italian-Americans gently, rather affectionately satirized. It
takes its time building its characters and its story, which is told as family history
in an unneeded voiceover by a character who is never older than an infant during the time
encompassed by the film. (It matters not that the story is a true one and that it is the
filmmaker's family history. Not only does the voiceover device not add anything of
significance here, but it also has the effect of distancing the viewer one step from the
goings on. It borders on cutesy and belies less than confident filmmaking.)
But if the story rambles a bit, it does know where it is going; it
turns out to be less predictable and more interesting than the anticipated sitcom. The
film does a fine job of developing solidly rounded characters for two of its three
prinicpal players. Buddy, a would-be crooner, gave up his chance for the Arthur
Godfrey Talent Scouts when presented with an ultimatum by his fiancee, Estelle:
Arthur Godfrey or her. Buddy dreams of getting out of the unpromising grind of factory
work, but none of a series of attempted ventures into independence works out.
In one more grab for his dreams, Buddy buys a dilapidated two-family
house, planning to live upstairs and fix up the lower floor as a bar (where, of course, he
will sing). The problem is that the current upstairs tenants won't move out. The tenants
are an older drunkard and his much younger wife, Mary, who is not long off the boat from
Ireland and pronouncedly pregnant.
Writer/director Raymond De Felitta creates a strong sense of the
mores of the time, the place, and the Italian-American community of which Buddy and
Estelle are part. The local tavern is the social club for the men; the wives hang out and
gossip at a diner. Family is important; all generations get involved in every crisis.
Racial and ethnic bigotry (particularly against the Irish) and the sexism of the era are
not spared. (In all likelihood, these folks never even heard the word, though the effects
of sexism are well evident in their day-to-day lives.)
Buddy 's character emerges naturally through the accumulating incidents
of the film. The performance of Michael Rispoli (Summer of Sam, The Third Miracle, The Sopranos)
brings out a sympathetic hero - a gentle and caring guy who won't give up dreaming and who
may even be able to break through the community and family pressure to pursue his dreams.
Mary (Kelly Macdonald, Trainspotting)
rather unexpectedly becomes a key player in that process; Macdonald draws a spunky
character who will only let her sensitivity and real charm show when her defenses are
gradually lowered. An initially amusing performance by Katherine Narducci (also a featured
player on The Sopranos), as Estelle, captures the satire effectively, but she
becomes rather monotonously shrewish in her refusal to believe in Buddy - more a fault of
the writing, one suspects, than of the performance. A more likable Estelle, a less
single-response character, would have given more power to the ultimate resolution of the
story.
