Two Family House

I just saw a charming little film, Two Family House, that for some reason I added to my Netflix queue years ago. It patiently moved up to the top and I'm glad I didn't remove it, because I enjoyed it very much. It's not particularly realistic or profound, just a little slice of life that was very touching.

The cast is full of actors who were in The Sopranos, most notably Michael Respoli as Buddy Vasalo, a lovable loser in 1950's Staten Island. Somewhat like his contemporary fictional character Ralph Kramden, Buddy has many get-rich-quick schemes, but none of them pan out, and he's constantly being brought down by his harridan wife, played by another Sopranos vet, Kathrine Narducci. He will never forget how she made him decline to audition for the Arthur Godfrey Show, thus depriving him his chance to be Julius LaRosa.

As the story begins Buddy has bought a ramshackle two-family house. He intends to live upstairs and turn the ground floor into a bar. Problem--he has to evict the current upstairs tenants, a loutish Irishman and his very pregnant wife. When the wife has the baby and it has distinctly African features, well, the talk is all over the neighborhood. Buddy, following his wife's wishes, forces her to leave (the husband, stunned at the complexion of his child, leaves on his own), but he is soft-hearted, and helps her out on the sly. This being a movie, of course a romance develops.

The film was written and directed by Raymond de Fillita, and is apparently based on his uncle. The Italian community certainly rings true, with the quirks and traditions of both men and women written and performed with a particularly Roman zest. I'm not sure what to make of the characterization of Mary, the Irish girl, who is luminously played by Kelly MacDonald. She is a complex character--supposedly a "bad" girl (a white woman who has slept with a black man in 1956 wouldn't be termed any other way, at least not in the working class) but she is also painted as some sort of idealized fantasy girl. Buddy takes a liking to her because she is most decidedly not like his wife, and he can talk to her. The romance between them doesn't seem authentic--it happens because it has to, for the sake of the script--but the actors were so good I didn't mind and even rooted them on. Watching a character follow his own heart over the objections of an entire community can be thrilling stuff.

I've also learned that any film with Kelly MacDonald is worth watching. She is a Scottish actress who made her debut in Trainspotting and has had some interesting turns along the way--as Peter Pan in Finding Neverland, and Steve Coogan's wife in Tristram Shandy, and most notably as a Texas housewife in No Country For Old Men. She is always interesting (and easy on the eyes as well).