It was good. And then it went off-track. And then it got good again. And then it lost me. Over and over it seemed like City Island didn't know what it wanted to accomplish. Was it a movie about a hilarious, dysfunctional family? Was it a lesson in communicating with the ones you love? It could have been both, but I never quite figured it out where it was trying to land.
City Island centers around Vince Rizzo. He's seemingly normal. He's got a wife, a teen son and daughter, and they all seem normal too. Sure, they have explosive arguments, but that is nothing new. The real truth, however, is that they're each hiding their own secrets.
The essence of the story begins when Vince, a prison guard, brings home a prisoner, convicted of stealing a car. You soon learn that the convict is really Vince's first son, who he abandoned before birth. Vince hopes that by bringing him home he can help his son and repair the damage he may have caused by leaving. Interwoven in this large story are also sub-plots containing the rest of the family's secrets.
To give credit where credit is due, there were a lot of laughs. They were timed well, they were fresh, and they pulled me in. Furthermore, Andy Garcia brought a lot of life to his character Vince, and the supporting cast including Julianna Marguiles, Alan Arkin, Steve Strait, Ezra Miller, and Dominik GarcÃa-Lorido made the movie enjoyable. Because I laughed often and connected with many of the characters, the movie wasn't a total bomb.
Unfortunately, at the same time, Emily Mortimer was boring, unrealistic, and unnecessary. She plays Molly, a woman Vince meets in an acting class. They periodically convene and talk about life and their secrets, trying to help each other put it all together. Every time they did this, I wanted to fast-forward. It interrupted the movie's flow and I felt myself both detaching and losing interest. Molly has a confusing and lackluster secret of her own, which is revealed towards the end, disturbing yet again whatever message the film was trying to convey. Her character as a whole added nothing to the film, and actually took away from the other relatable characters and the laughs they created.
City Island was a simple story, weighed down by complexities. It tried to break away from the standard formula but fell flat around certain characters and events. There is some merit to the movie, which is why I can't say it was bad; it merely didn't do anything that made it better than average.
