City Island (2009)
6/10
Improbable but likable
9 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
The series of improbable coincidences are just too many and contrived to make this a movie to recommend for anyone unless she/he is looking for pure escape. This is like a jigsaw puzzle that a 2-year-old could assemble, not one of those 1000-piece babies. There is too much contrived plot for the amount of dramatic geography, and the actors are really better than this. I don't get the City Island angle at all: other than the movie-tryout feature that could be in a few cities, this film could have been set anywhere else in the country. The deus-ex-machina of landing a name role in a top movie is simply over the top, and casting directors must cringe at the scene at the tryout that is utterly unbelievable.

Nevertheless it's a good romp worth seeing for a fairly snappy script. Note to hairdressers and directors: never, ever cast a female with bangs: the fall of the hair is different in every cut, so the movie's seams stand out egregiously.
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