Somewhere in Queens

Back in the 1990's, we all enjoyed a sitcom known as "Everybody Loves Raymond" which starred Ray Romano. And that being the uproarious comedy it was, I can't help but think about that sitcom while watching "Somewhere in Queens". Sure, that was a comedy, whereas this film is a drama/comedy, and this was definitely written better than the sitcom, however, they are both about dysfunction within an Italian-American family replete with loud and boisterous characters.

Leo Russo (Ray Romano) lives a simple life in Queens New York with his wife, Angela (Laurie Metcalf), their shy but talented son Matthew "Sticks" (Jacob Ward), and Leo's close-knit network of Italian-American relatives and neighborhood friends. Happy enough working at the family construction business alongside his father Dominic "Pops" (Tony Lo Bianco) and younger brother Frank (Sebastian Maniscalco), Leo lives each week for "Sticks" high-school basketball games, never missing a chance to cheer on his only child as he rules the court as a star athlete. When the high-school senior gets a surprising and life-changing opportunity to play basketball in college, Leo jumps at the chance to provide a plan for his future, away from the family construction business. But when sudden heartbreak threatens to derail "Sticks", Leo goes to unexpected lengths to keep his son on this new path. 

Others to round out the cast are Sadie Stanley as Dani Brooks, Jennifer Esposito as Pamela Carmelo, Jon Manfrellotti as Petey, Geoffrey Owens as Scotty, P.J. Byrne as Ben Parson, Karen Lynn Gorney as Rose Marie, Erik Griffin as DJ Joey Bones, June Gable as Mama Russo and J.C. MacKenzie as Mr. Mack. 

This was surprisingly well directed by Ray Romano as his directorial debut. With all the work as actor in both TV and films, this actor must've been observing and learning from each director he's worked with, because this filmmaker is clearly a natural. Surely, he knows the subject matter being in a sitcom about dysfunctional families for years, however, that doesn't negate the ability he has to be able to get his actors to dig deep to find those emotions they obviously needed to bring up in order to convince the audience of the clear reality that was set here. It was written quite well by Ray Romano (TV) and Mark Stegemann (TV) in that considering the both of them have no feature film experience penning a script, this was equally amazing. Surely, they both have a good deal of TV writing experience, and this certainly served them well. Other than a couple of slow places that picked up after a point and some minor choppiness in the script, this screenplay was incredible. The nuances with the emotions went from a roller coaster ride to poignancy and back again which is very real in the real world, yet these writers were able to focus on such an amount of dysfunction that anyone could see that they might have someone in their family like a certain character in this film. These writers will receive more feature film work, as will Romano being behind the camera. 

This was a real tour de force for Romano as director as well as an incredible performance for Metcalf and both could receive Oscar nods come that time. This was a, sort of, dramatic "Everybody Loves Raymond", but with so much more depth. 

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                            Rated: R                                                 107mins.