City Island

City Island exits as a narrow water community on an island maintained by the Bronx in New York City. It's here the dramedy of City Island, opening at the Angelika this week, plays out. Andy Garcia plays the prison guard paterfamilias of a dysfunctional family. His wife Julianna Margulis (in a bland Victoria Principal wig) as well as two older teens form the everybody-has-something-to-hide Rizzo clan. Emily Mortimer and Alan Arkin add some weight as people Garcia meets in an acting class.
Vince (Garcia) wants to keep his acting class undercover so he tells his wife he's playing poker. Vince's even bigger secret is bringing home a car thief on parole (a hunky Steven Strait) as a sort of live-in carpenter but not telling anyone that he thinks Strait is actually his bastard son that he abandoned from a previous relationship. The legit son has the hots for internet porn and in particular a self-proclaimed 350-pound sex goddess who just happens to live next door. The daughter has dropped out of her first year in college and works as a stripper. All kinds of comic high jinx occurs. This is the kind of film where everybody finds out the collective truth all at once in a big scene at the end.
City Island starts out slow but builds momentum if only because you think Vince will land a walk-on role in a Scorsese film for which he auditioned. City Island isn't totally boring because of adequate direction and interesting location photography that takes in the fact the Rizzos live on an island. I never really laughed out loud but the audience I saw it with roared a couple of times at the more sitcom inspired dialogue.