A completley unpretentious movie that's surprisingly good: City Island

"City Island" is a small, low-key, below-the-radar movie that breaks no new ground and will not be studied in classes on world cinema but is quite entertaining and completely unpretentious, much better than I thought it would be. Story centers on a family of four in the eponymous neighborhood in the Bronx, dad works as a prison guard but secretly wants to be an actor, taking classes at night while his wife (Julianne Marguiles) believes he's at a poker game. Family is full of secrets, most notably dad (Andy Garcia) has a son out of wedlock whom he spots in prison and brings home to live with the family, daughter has been kicked out of college and works as a stripper, son has an obsession with overweight women, and so on. Sounds a little kooky, or kinky, and it is, but the script is very well engineered - film teachers take note, it's a very "teachable" screenplay I think - and many of the scenes are very funny - family dinner, Garcia's film audition, the grand denouement when secrets are revealed. Other aspects don't work quite as well, especially the flirtatious relationship between Garcia and acting classmate, Emily Mortimer - film can't decide the sexual-emotional content of their relationship exactly. Alan Arkin is a good bit player as the acting instructor. The film owes a huge debt to The Sopranos, in the family dynamics (the daughter especially), and in the motif of the tough guy who wants to act. It's not a believable film on a literary level, but it's not meant to be - just a good entertainment that set forth modest goals and achieved them.