The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (29 page)

Write about what you know. That's one of the golden rules of letters, and a tenet that screenwriter Raymond DeFelitta followed when scripting
Two Family House
. “It's a story I'd heard over the years from both my uncle and my father that involved the purchase of a two-family house, where my uncle planned to open a bar on the ground floor and use the second floor apartment as his home,” he says. “But once he purchased his two-family house my uncle faced a moment of truth. How he reacted to what followed is what makes his story exceptional and worth telling today.”

It's Staten Island in 1956. Buddy Visalo (Michael Rispoli) is a lovable loser who dreams of being a crooner. His lone shot at the big time failed to bear fruit after his pessimistic wife Estelle (Katherine Narducci) wouldn't let him go to an audition for the Arthur Godfrey show. Godfrey hired Julius LeRosa, another American-Italian singer, for the job instead, and Buddy is eaten up inside that maybe, just maybe, that job could have been his. Since then he has been reduced to partaking in an endless stream of get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out. He has one last plan that he is sure could be a winner — buy a two-family house, live upstairs, and convert the bottom into a bar where he could perform and cater to his customers.

Buddy's friends are lukewarm to the idea, particularly when they see the building. It's a run-down tenement with unwanted lodgers in the upper apartment — the lovely and very pregnant Mary O'Neary (Kelly Macdonald) and her boozy husband Jim (Kevin Conway). Despite Buddy's best efforts to evict them they simply won't go. When Buddy's plan to intimidate the O'Nearys into leaving backfires, Mary becomes so distraught that she goes into labor. Following the birth the loutish Jim disappears, more interested in booze than in babies. Mary and the newborn are left alone to fend for themselves. Buddy evicts her, but feels so guilty he sets her up in a small apartment in the neighborhood.

In time Buddy realizes that Mary is the only person who truly believes in him and that he has fallen hopelessly in love with her. He juggles his married life, his old friends, his mistress, and the new bar until his life seems ready to fall apart. Then he finds the strength to turn his back on the things that make him unhappy and follow his dream to be Buddy Visalo, singer and bar owner.

Two Family House
is a simple, old-fashioned movie. Director DeFellita has created a sweet, understated romance whose story rings with grace and honesty. He has looked back to the great filmmakers of the 1940s and '50s, men like George Stevens and David Lean, who created emotional moments that were earned, not taken.

“I'm not a hardcore independent filmmaker,” says DeFilitta. “My tastes are older and perhaps a bit quaint. But what I appreciate is not out of vogue — it's just out of practice. Very often the simpler a movie appears to be, the richer it becomes for me.”

At the core of
Two Family House
is Michael Rispoli as Buddy, a warm teddy bear of a man. Rispoli may be best known as Jackie Aprile on the first season of hbo's
The Sopranos
, but if there were any justice he would have been noticed for his work in this film. His Buddy may look like Fred Flintstone, but he has more wit, imagination, and intelligence than his pals at the local bar and refuses to accept his lot in life. He's a dreamer with stars in his eyes, and it is his journey that propels the whole film; if you didn't believe in him the movie's spell would be broken. Buddy has been bloodied by circumstance but is unbowed and it is that theme of achievement through doggedness that makes him and this movie so appealing.

“Michael has the toughness of that type of neighborhood guy so ingrained that he doesn't have to show it,” says DeFilitta. “He
is
that rare, odd combination of hard-nosed pragmatist and softer, more artistic dreamer.”

Another of the film's revelations is Kelly Macdonald as Mary. There is great chemistry between her and Rispoli, but it is her strength and independence that shine through. Since her debut in 1996's
Trainspotting
through to her roles in
My Life So Far
and
Gosford Park
, Macdonald has been searching for the breakout performance that she so richly deserves. She takes a chance with Mary, playing her as plainspoken and blunt, and winning over the audience with her audacity rather than charm. It's a spunky performance, one that brims with excitement and life.

DeFilitta has nothing but praise for Macdonald. “I had seen Kelly in
Trainspotting
and every time I watched her in a film I always suspected that she had smaller parts that got bigger because she was so good.”

The other female lead, Katherine Narducci, another refugee from
The Sopranos
, was cast partially because she resembled DeFilitta's reallife aunt. “Photographs of Estelle from the late 1940s and early 1950s could be pictures of Katherine today,” he says, “the two women look so much alike.” Narducci brings more to the role than her looks. In what may be the toughest part in the film, she plays the soul-destroying wife, but makes us feel sympathy rather than hatred for her. She is basically a good person, and while she would rather condemn Buddy to a life of drudgery than see him try and take a chance, we get the feeling it is because she is afraid to break from social convention, not that she is deliberately trying to ruin his life. She may be spoiled and difficult, but she isn't evil, and Narducci subtly conveys this in a well-mannered and funny performance.

Two Family House
is an uplifting look at human nature and how dreams sometimes come true.

The Virgin Suicides
is one of those rare occasions when a film surpasses the book it is based on. Writer and first-time director Sophia Coppola manages to render the complex novel down to its core, without losing the heart and suburban spirit of the book. She sensitively handles the story of the Lisbon sisters and the neighborhood boys who love them.

“I read the book and loved the story and the characters,” said director Sophia Coppola. “and the way he [author Jeffrey Eugenides] was talking about this teenage world without being condescending. How everything is so epic when you are experiencing it for the first time — your first love, obsession — you have all these heavy things on your mind, like the mystery between girls and boys.”

Set in the upscale suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in the early 1970s, the film introduces us to the Lisbon sisters. They are five blonde and sweet girls ranging in age from 13 to 17, who have captivated the neighborhood boys with their angelic beauty. The group of guys, led by Tim Weiner (Jonathan Tucker), worship the sisters from afar, using binoculars to secretly watch them.

The girls are unattainable, not because they don't like the boys, but because their strict parents (James Woods and Kathleen Turner) barely let them out of the house. In a misguided effort to protect their kids from the big bad world, the elder Lisbons are overprotective and smother the girls with rules and regulations. The attempted suicide of the family's youngest daughter Cecilia (Hannah R. Hall) leads them to a psychologist (Danny DeVito) who tries to reason with her, saying that she isn't old enough to know how hard life can get.

“Obviously, doctor,” she replies, “you've never been a 13-year-old girl.”

The doctor suggests the parents give the girls more freedom, unlock the gates of the suburban prison. The Lisbons take his advice, open up their home, and throw a party. “The first and only party of their short lives,” the narrator explains. At the party Cecilia makes a second, more successful attempt at ending her life.

For the sisters left behind, life goes on after the death of their youngest sibling. In the fall they return to school, where Lux (Kirsten Dunst) falls for a boy with one of the greatest names ever, Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett). When we first meet him he is walking down a school hallway with the strains of Heart's
Magic Man
playing on the soundtrack. His strut combined with the music tell us all we need to know about his character. Trip is a good-looking smooth operator with feathered hair.

Lux breaks her curfew, and the girls are grounded . . . forever. The resourceful kids figure out ways to stay in touch, and in one of the best scenes in the film they communicate by playing records over the phone. Like ancient peoples who would commune through smoke signals, the boys and girls “speak” to one another through music. The phone rings. One of the girls picks it up as Todd Rundgren's
Hello, It's Me
seeps out of the receiver. They volley songs back and forth. Gilbert O'Sullivan's sad sack version of
Alone Again (Naturally)
is answered with
Run to Me
by the Bee Gees. It's a lovely sequence that displays the emotional power the music has in the mind of a 14-year-old.

In the end, as the title suggests, the sisters kill themselves, leaving the boys with only their memories and a handful of souvenirs from the girl's lives — a diary, lipstick, and some rosary beads.

Coppola has taken a beautifully but densely written book and boiled it down to its essentials. Eugenide's novel is obsessed with details, so much so that the book threatens to collapse under the weight of its own minutiae. On film, Coppola follows the golden rule of directing, “show us, don't tell us,” and avoids the downfall of the book. The wonderfully choreographed Lisbon party scene, for example, quickly conveys the whole awkwardness of the social gathering, from the well-meaning interruptions of the parents to the harmless flirting of the girls.

Seventies vintage pop songs play a large role in the film, perfectly evoking the era and setting the movie's tone. At the school dance elo's
Strange Magic
reflects the mysterious sexual awakening the Lisbon girls experience as one by one they join their dates on the dance floor. The music works as a mood enhancer for the film, and doesn't detract from what is on the screen, but rather adds to it. A luscious contemporary score is provided by Air, a Parisian prog-rock electronica band.

“I wanted Air to do the score because I was listening to them while I wrote the script,” Coppola says. “I know to the author of the book
The Virgin Suicides
it's very much about memory and
how
you remember things, and the idea of piecing these girls together through fragments of memory. I thought that by having music that sort of separated you from the time and was contemporary but related to 1970s soundtrack music I could achieve that kind of feel. Also Air have a dreamy quality to them that separates you from reality, and they are so good at making the perfect melancholy feeling.”

A cast of seasoned pros heads the production. James Woods is father Lisbon, a dorky high school math teacher who is up to his ears in estrogen and uncertain how to deal with it. “He loved the script,” Coppola says of Woods, who is best known for playing tough, smart-ass guys. “I think it is always interesting to see actors in parts that are different for them. It was fun to see his other side. In real life he's very charming and lovable, and went to mit and has this Mensa-sized brain. I saw that he had that side, a sensitive side. You wouldn't believe it. James Woods has a sensitive side!”

As the mother Kathleen Turner is a harridan who is so freaked out by her daughters' blooming sexuality that she smothers them, and eventually loses the thing she held most dear, her family. “I hadn't seen Kathleen Turner since I was 14,” says Coppola, “I think it was strange for her to have a meeting about a script with me, because the last time she saw me I was a gawky little kid. As soon as we started working together she took me very seriously as her boss, so I have to give her credit for being so cool like that.”

As the most luminous of all the sisters Kirsten Dunst shines as Lux. On her face you can see the struggle of a young woman trying to find out who she is but never quite succeeding. Even when she is smiling there is a sadness that comes through, as though “the imprisonment of being a girl” is too much for her to bear. And in the end, I guess it was.

The Virgin Suicides
is Sophia Coppola's directorial debut, and it is a strong, self-assured piece of work. She balances the dark humor of the piece with real emotion and treats the young characters with respect, not as some strange mutations who are trying to learn the ways of the adult world. She realizes that the boys who loved these girls couldn't give them the one thing they needed most: understanding.

Calgary-born director Gary Burns co-wrote the script for
waydowntown
with his hometown in mind. He came up with the idea for the movie based on a pet gripe of his, the “plus 15” walkway system in Calgary, Alberta's downtown core. Built 15 feet above the city's streets, these walkways connect many of the downtown's office buildings. “The unfortunate result of this ever-expanding system is that these walkways have sucked the life out of the downtown core,” says Burns. “I imagined a film where the main characters inhabit this architectural anomaly; a metaphor for modernism gone wrong.”

Burns, working with co-writer James Martin, fleshed out a story about a group of co-workers who bet a month's salary to see who can stay indoors the longest. Since their offices are all connected by the walkways it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that they could stay inside until they retire. “The film really questions why we're working where we are working,” says Burns. “Is this where you want to spend the rest of your life?”

We meet the contestants in this crazy game almost a month into their wager. No one thought the match would last this long, and the players are nearing the end of their tethers. The challenge was the brainchild of twentysomething Tom (Fabrizio Filippo) and office drone Randy (Tobias Godson), two cubicle dwellers at the firm of Mather, Mather, and Mather. Their colleague Sandra (Marya Delver) signed up to show she was one of the guys, and Curt (Gordon Curry) is a girl-crazy desk jockey who is convinced he will win the bet. Tom's cubicle-mate Brad (Don McKellar), a lifer with almost 20 years at the company, doesn't join in on the bet, but seems to be pondering a final wager with himself.

The effects of braving the great indoors for 24-hour days are beginning to show. As we near lunchtime, Tom unwittingly gets involved in a dysfunctional tryst in the parking garage, experiences the fantasy of flying, and spots saluting superheroes out of the corner of his eye. Sandra is obsessed with the recycled air being filtered through the building's vents and has become addicted to the perfume inserts from fancy magazines. Randy is irritable and seems to be losing his short-term memory. Curt, convinced that having sex will prolong his chances of winning, hits on a vulnerable co-worker. We also learn that Curt has a leg up over the others. In university he won a similar bet by not going outdoors for a full year.

By the time lunch is over, so is the bet.

Like many films before it,
waydowntown
unmasks the soulless nature of corporate life. What makes it stand apart from its predecessors like
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
,
The Apartment
, and
Clockwatchers
is its thoroughly modern approach to the subject of office burnout. These people aren't just bored; the climate-controlled cocoon they live and work in has dehumanized them to the point where they are office somnambulists, the zombies of the corporate caste system. Brad, the quiet guy, is the ultimate example. He's a man so broken that he spends his days playing video games at his desk and stapling motivational slogans like “Don't compromise — prioritise!” to his chest. When he sends Tom a nasty note suggesting that he is destined for the same fate, Tom realizes for the first time that he is completely desensitized, and that his job largely consists of “saying hello and making small talk.” It's interesting that in the film's 87-minute running time we never actually learn what any of them do to earn their paychecks. Burns is making the point that all corporate businesses are the same — vast, anonymous, and oppressive. In
waydowntown
's world the lines between work, leisure, and trade have been erased.

Initially Burns wanted to shoot the entire film in one long continuous shot that would have necessitated the use of digital video, which allows for 92 minutes of non-stop taping. That idea was tossed out, but the plan to use digital video stuck.

“There were a couple of reasons for staying with the video format,” said Burns. “I figured the only way the film was going to fly is if we had unlimited access to the malls and walkways. I think a small crew that looks like a television crew has a better chance of having the run of downtown.”

Burns also liked the realistic look digital video provided. Under the fluorescent lighting of the office areas and the mall he found that video lent an “edgier look” and a heightened sense of realism. “I think if you do go with video, you're not shooting video to look like film. That would be a big mistake,” he says. “If you're going to shoot video, embrace the video and say, ‘This is what we want, we love the look of this.'”

The young ensemble cast is uniformly good, although Fab Filippo as Tom is the leading light. His sardonic narration tries to make sense of the unusual situation, but it is his character's realization that the artificial world he lives in is turning him into a nasty, self-centered person that elevates the film. In a darkly comedic morality tale like this we need some redemption, and in Filippo's character we get it. By lunchtime on the 24th day of the bet he is on the road to salvation.

Also notable is Canadian auteur Don McKellar in the role of Brad. His character best sums up the mood of the film by incessantly replaying a computer program of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. With a click of his mouse he topples over Armstrong every time, causing him to do a face-plant on the lunar surface. The constant sabotage of Armstrong on the computer screen is a metaphor for emotional stumbles that Brad and his office mates suffer in their 9 to 5 existence. McKellar subtly underplays Brad, barely concealing a bubbling volcano of rage beneath his spiteful stare. It is a great comedic performance.

waydowntown
is set in Calgary, but the dark urban satire is universal. Many viewers will relate to the themes of alienation and despair, but hopefully will also find catharsis in the story.