‘Island’ is character-driven

In the age of the Cineplex and big-budget films, it is sometimes difficult to find a “small” movie that is character- and story-driven rather than simply a vehicle for special effects. Fortunately, there is such a film in “City Island,” starring Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies.

Garcia and Margulies star as Vince and Joyce Rizzo, a long-married couple with two children living in an area of the Bronx known as City Island. The locale is very interesting, as City Island is an old fishing village turned suburb in Long Island Sound, where waterfront homes have distant views of the New York City skyline.

Vince is a correctional officer and continually corrects people who call him a prison guard. The Rizzos are constantly arguing, and Vince conducts himself so that confrontation with Joyce is kept to a minimum. Consequently, Vince has some very big secrets.

Vince is a frustrated actor and has been secretly attending acting classes at night, telling Joyce he is playing poker. The ruse is so transparent that Joyce is convinced he is having an affair. Nonetheless, Vince’s big secret is that he fathered a son before meeting Joyce and left the mother before she gave birth.

Vince’s past comes back to haunt him when his son is transferred to the correctional facility where he works. The inmate, a car thief named Tony Nardella (Steven Strait), has no idea who or where his father is and was given his mother’s last name. Tony is eligible for parole but has no responsible party to whom he can be released. Vince arranges for Tony to be released into his custody on the flimsy premise that he once knew his mother.

Once ensconced on City Island, Tony soon sees that Vince’s life is anything but settled. In addition to the fractious marriage, Vince’s teenage son, Vince Jr., (Ezra Miller) is obsessed with an obese female neighbor who hosts a big beautiful women website, and his daughter, Vivian, (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) has lost her college scholarship and is secretly working as a stripper.

Vince has confided in his fellow acting student Molly (Emily Mortimer) about both his son and having to hide his pursuit of acting from his wife. Molly has some secrets of her own but urges Vince to come clean. The situation comes to a head when Vince auditions for a role in a Martin Scorsese film, and Joyce catches him in a lie after he calls in sick to work.

While the situations depicted are more extreme than most people will ever deal with, “City Island” presents characters and relationships that seem real. Garcia and Margulies seem like a genuine couple, and the family unit is made more believable by Garcia-Lorido being Andy Garcia’s real-life daughter.

It’s good to see Garcia in a leading role. Garcia was a hot commodity 20 years ago but never quite achieved the “A-list” status many predicted. He is a good actor, and the part of Vince Rizzo is a good fit for Garcia, who has made a career of playing New York Italians despite his Cuban heritage.

Margulies sinks her teeth into the role of Joyce Rizzo and shows she can play a completely different character than the television doctors and lawyers for which she is best known. Joyce Rizzo is a tough woman used to getting her way, and you can see her start to unravel as she sees her marriage slipping away.

A pivotal role is played by Mortimer as the urbane, sophisticated and ultimately sad Molly. As a fellow acting student, she provides Vince with a caring female friend in a warm yet platonic relationship. She sets Vince on a course that will ultimately force him to confront his various secrets, which will set the tone for the next phase of his life.

Hopefully, the blockbuster films of summer, which start with this week’s release of “Iron Man 2,” will not chase “City Island” out of the theaters prematurely. This well-reviewed film, which won the Heineken Audience Award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, could be somewhat of a sleeper if given the chance.

VAN NOVACK is the assistant vice president of institutional research and assessment at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife, Elizabeth.