Two Family House

Buddy's repressed. A young Italian-American man living in Staten Island in 1956, he sees opportunity all around him. It's laying there waiting for him to pick it up and run with. Except for one major obstacle, his wife Estelle. She wants only for Buddy to find his narrow niche in the local community, with its dead-end job and familiar surroundings, and exist quietly in her idea of the American dream.

But it's not Buddy's vision. So Buddy perseveres, undercut at every turn by Estelle. He finally manages to buy a two-family house to turn into his dream; a bar on the first floor, his home on the second. The current occupants are a foul-mouthed white trash Irish immigrant family, the very young wife in a very pregnant way. When she gives birth to a child whose father is obviously black, the older husband abandons her. And from this point Buddy's life journey takes a remarkable turn.

Two Family House is a prototypical Indie film in all its positive aspects. It does very well with little budget, maximizing the contributions of cast and crew. The uplifting story is told without pandering or exploitation. The movie's not great, but it is effective, and most importantly, very enjoyable.

Well, football is over, so I caught this on an early Sunday evening watching HBO. Never heard of it, and I honestly don't know how I started watching it - just flipping around I guess and I heard an Irish accent, so I watched for a bit. Turned out to be a very good movie, not a great movie, but interesting nonetheless. Michael Rispoli wins you over with his Italian nice-guy performance, and Kelly MacDonald is wonderful (for some reason reminded me of Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful life). Really, this was just a slice of life picture with some characters that were interesting and compelling. I know this isn't a really great review I'm writing here - I guess I just want to say that if you come upon the movie, give it a chance. It's not going to change your life, but you'll probably talk about with anyone you see who happened to see it to, and that's always a good thing.

Raymond DeFelitta, the director of the current release, "The Thing About my Folks", working with his own material, created this wonderful film, which should be seen more often. Unfortunately, when this film first came out, it had wonderful notices, but alas, it disappeared too soon for us to catch up with it. Thanks to HBO, the film was shown recently and it proved to be worthy of the praise we had heard about.

The story takes place in the fifties. The characters at the center of the film, are basically Italian-Americans living in Staten Island. Buddy and Estelle Visalo, are the owners of a two family house in need of repairs. The upstairs apartment has been rented to an Irish couple, Mary and Jim, who are going through a rough moment in their lives.

Buddy, with the help of his friends from the tavern that is the social meeting point of the neighborhood, is trying to evict the couple upstairs, after it's clear they are up to no good and can't pay the rent. It proves to be too late because Mary begins her labor pains and Estelle, who doesn't like the woman, helps in the delivery. But horror of horrors, the little baby proves to be much more than what Mary was expecting, and Jim abandons her.

The Italian landlord develops a friendship toward Mary, who he succeeds in evicting, but feels terribly about it. He rescues her from the flea bag hotel where she is staying since her own sister doesn't want her. Buddy finds, and pays, for an apartment for Mary and her son. It's clear that Buddy and Mary go from a friendship into a relationship that will change their lives forever.

The film works because the charismatic work of Michael Rispoli, who as Buddy, is a man with a heart of gold. Mr. Rispoli is an actor that is always good, no matter what character he plays. Also the movie has an inspired performance by Kelly MacDonald. Ms. MacDonald does good work as Mary. The supporting cast, Kartherine Narducci, Kevin Conway, Matt Servitto, Vincent Pastore, and the rest, are perfect.

We look forward future endeavors by Raymond DeFelitta, who proves with this film he can tell a story that involves the viewer in more ways than some others. "Two Family House" is a small movie, with a big heart!

It seemed strange to see the decidedly outer-borough "Two Family House" at an expensive Manhattan movie theater, until during the opening credits two old ladies sat in front of me, put their coats on the two seats between them, and proceeded to loudly comment on the proceedings to each other throughout the whole movie.

Much like the friends of the protagonists do in this very sweet yet honest depiction of post-WWII life on Staten Island when an off-islander disrupts the quotidian.

While it drags a bit here and there, and the voice-over narration sometimes re-states the already visually obvious, the very New York characters (including one played by "Pussy" of "The Sopranos") are real people in real situations and realistic traps. This is less schmaltzy than Barry Levinson's Baltimore nostalgia-fests.

Filmed in Staten Island, Jersey City and Bayonne, the settings are accompanied by lovely period music by the John Pizzarelli Trio (who also does a cameo appearance as Julius LaRosa).

This is one of those small, charming indie movies that seems to be a labor of love, like a jewel of a short story.

(originally written 10/14/2000)

Late afternoon on a monday, flipping through my 8 chanels of HBO, I found this little number and feel all the richer for it. Good acting and genuine make a shoestring budget feel and slightly implausible plot fade into the recesses of your disbelief. A warm, poignant story about the kind of guy that we can all relate to.