Two Family House

Staten Island, 1956. Buddy works in a factory, has a good voice and once had a real chance at it, but the dream has turned into a run of failed money-making schemes. The latest is buying a two-family house and turning the ground floor into a neighbourhood bar where he can sing. The trouble is that he inherits the upstairs tenants with it: a pregnant young Irishwoman newly off the boat and a drinking husband. She gives birth, the baby’s father is Black, and the neighbourhood splits in two; where exactly the tolerance of these Italian and Irish neighbours runs out is the film’s actual subject. Raymond De Felitta took the story from his own uncle. Michael Rispoli plays Buddy, Kelly Macdonald the young woman. It won the audience award at Sundance in 2000 and was nominated for best screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. The record’s summary never says who the baby is, which is where the whole tension of the film sits.