Flak Magazine: Review of Two Family House, 10-28-00

Romantic comedy is a genre mainly comprised of sappy, syrupy fare with few risks and fewer surprises. Boy and girl slowly stumble toward one another. Somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of the way into the film there's some tension and misunderstanding. By the end, boy and girl work things out. It's happy. The couples that turned out to see the movie hold hands as they walk out of the theater. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The only ways to overcome this curse of predestiny are clever writing and serious, believable realism.

Thankfully, Raymond De Felitta's Two Family House chooses the latter route. The film is packed tightly with heady issues like adultery, racism, alcoholism and betrayal. Sure it has its cutesy moments, but this is a film that's more romantic dramady than anything else. For that, it's refreshing.

To hear Estelle tell it, her husband Buddy is "pregnant with failure." Their brief marriage has seen the death of schemes ranging from pizza delivery to limo driving. Because she once deprived Buddy of his dream of becoming a successful singer, she guiltily goes along with whatever half-baked ideas he comes up with.

Buddy's (Michael Rispoli) latest plan is to buy a decrepit two-family house on Staten Island and turn it into a bar and living quarters for Estelle (Katherine Narducci) and himself. Though his wife makes it clear she has no intentions of being "a barmaid," Buddy becomes blinded by his vision of a place where he can sing every night. Estelle confides to friends her hopes that the enterprise will go belly-up and the house will be sold.

But Buddy faces a more tangible problem: The couple occupying the upstairs apartment is unruly and won't move out. And due to some strange, outdated New York zoning law, Buddy has no right to evict them, even for non-payment of rent.

In an ironic twist, Buddy is saved when the woman, Mary (Kelly MacDonald, Trainspotting) gives birth and her alcoholic husband hightails it, leaving Buddy with an unusual mess. In his wishy-washy/heart-of-gold way, he tries to put off kicking Mary out as long as possible.

But Estelle won't relent, and Mary's kicked to the curb. But guilt — both over Mary's eviction and the endless amusement his friends derive from it — gets the better of Buddy, and he secretly puts Mary up in a cheap apartment he can hardly afford.

It's not long before the pasta-eating Italian guy falls for the impoverished Irish mother with nothing but potatoes in her fridge. Soon, she's shopping for sun-dried tomatoes at the local grocery store while Buddy, in love for the first time, starts spending more and more time at her place. It's only a matter of time before Estelle finds out about the whole thing and a reckoning occurs.

But the reckoning takes a back seat to the improbable romance between Buddy and Mary. She nurtures his dreams and believes in him when he realizes Estelle never has. Likewise, Buddy's admiration for Mary's decision to raise her child is the closest Mary's come to having someone stand by her in a difficult, circumstance-driven life. The rightness of these two characters for one another is laid plain in a wonderfully shot scene in which Buddy mutters almost inaudibly and paces outside Mary's window, on the verge of a nervous breakdown because no one believes in his dream but him.

Unlike all too many "ethnic" comedies, Two Family House doesn't stumble into the pitfall of using stereotypes chiefly to fuel cheap laffs. Writer-director De Felitta squeezes both tragedy and drama from the expected Italian and Irish traits. Sure, it's hilarious when Buddy's friends from the neighborhood show up for an "eviction" with baseball bats. But it's plenty troubling (and, frankly, embarrassing) to hear them sit around a bar and disparage those beneath them on the social totem pole of the 1950s — namely, blacks and the Irish.

Not surprisingly, this charming, well-balanced film comes out smelling sweetly. It's cute without being trite and sentimental yet largely believable. This is due in no small part to De Felitta's warm, intimate camera work, which marries well with the John Pizzarelli Trio's classic '50s soundtrack.

Rispoli, best known for his work as Jackie Aprile on "The Sopranos," is a terrific, likable lead and while the character of Mary isn't nearly as developed as that of Buddy, MacDonald's acting talents, sweet face and lilting brogue make her a great fit for Rispoli's sensitive Italian crooner. Narducci (who also appears on "The Sopranos") ably does what's asked of her, but it's hard not to wish De Felitta had shown his audience some of what made Buddy marry Estelle in the first place. Surely it couldn't have all been circumstance. But this, along with the alertness and unusually large size of Mary's newborn baby, is the film's only real fault.

But these pale in comparison to what De Felitta has accomplished with his $2 million budget and 25-day shooting schedule. Two Family House packs a lot more emotional depth and squeezes more out of its cast than a thousand Meg Ryan movies. It's a date movie with brains.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)