Product Details

• Actors: Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald, Kathrine Narducci, Kevin Conway, Matt Servitto
• Directors: Raymond De Felitta
• Writers: Raymond De Felitta
• Producers: Adam Brightman, Al Klingenstein, Anne Harrison, Bernie DeLeo, Jim Kohlberg
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: May 29, 2001
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005B6KZ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,955 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Two Family House" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Raymond De Felitta's Sundance 2000 Audience Winner is a sweet little romantic drama set in the insular Italian and Irish neighborhoods of 1956 Staten Island. Narrated with the conversational ease of a bar story, it stars Michael Rispoli as Buddy, blue-collar Italian American with big dreams, a golden voice, and a history of failed business schemes. His latest scheme involves turning a two-story firetrap into a bar with an upstairs apartment, but first he has to evict the squatters he inherited with the house: an abandoned young Irish mother (Kelly Macdonald) and her half-black child. Guilty over his hardhearted decision, he sets them up in an apartment and essentially adopts them. An unlikely friendship begins in clashes and verbal fireworks and turns into a gentle romance while Buddy confronts his own prejudice and smothering cultural values.\n De Felitta is uncharacteristically generous to both his clannish working-class chorus and Buddy's wife Estelle (Kathrine Narducci, from "The Sopranos"), who undermines her spouse's efforts and ridicules his ambition out of sheer conformism. Rispoli, by contrast, is accepting and warm as a guy hungry for his piece of the American dream, and Macdonald's scrappy single mom is full of Irish dander that melts into a romantic sparkle and loving support. "Two Family House" is inspired by the true story of writer-director De Felitta's uncle, and there's an engaging modesty and loving understanding in this portrait of one man's rebellion against the stifling values and judgmental intolerance of his community. "--Sean Axmaker"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart and Sweet, June 10, 2001

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Two Family House (DVD)

What an absolutely lovely film this was. And what a shame it never enjoyed wider release, for it is eminently worth viewing. I was even more delighted when I found out that it really was based on a true story...the director/writer is Buddy's nephew.

Buddy Visalo is a lovable, warm, and bumbling dreamer whose wife Estelle constantly deflates his trial balloons--because she is expected to by her culture and the times they lived in. She wants Buddy to take no chances and would rather he kept a job he hated than try something new and more daring.

To realize his dream, Buddy must ignore Estelle and also evict the pregnant Mary O'Neary from the upstairs of the place where he hopes to start his bar. This eviction pains him greatly. How he assuages his pain and helps her out is the heart and soul of "Two-Family House".

This is a movie about doing good for someone and expecting nothing in return, about trying to fulfill a dream and dealing with the obstacles that are in your way. It is not a complex movie with a hidden agenda and messages tangled up in a lot of gimmickry. There are serious themes treated seriously, but never in a preachy way. It is just uplifting and full of truths with a hero who is Everyman. As one reviewer said ...."Buddy is off on an adventure that surprises even him. To accompany him is to experience filmgoing joy."

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars warm and wise, June 16, 2001

By 

Rosemarie McMichael "Love to read" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Two Family House (DVD)

This is essentially a character study of a decent guy, Buddy Visalo, who realizes 11 years into his marriage to Estelle that his family and friends are his jailers, stopping him from realizing his dreams of running a tavern. Estelle crushed his dream of auditioning for Arthur Godfrey's TV show, now she would have him stay at a mind numbing factory job for the sake of conformity. He buys a two-family house (against Estelle's objections), and when he meets his upstairs tenants, an Irish-American boozehound and his pregnant wife, his life starts to change. There is a happy ending, there is virtually no profanity (hurray!), and the setting of time and place, 1956 in Staten Island, NY, is realistic. Many of the actors are from The Sopranos, and this enhances the sense of familiarity one feels instantly with this group of Italian-Americans leading ordinary lives. There are no big speeches, no grandstanding displays of emotions, just the quiet depiction of a man re-gaining his own sense of self worth after years after putting his dreams on hold. Buddy is a decent guy, and you cheer him on his journey.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Family House an outstanding place to visit, January 7, 2002

By 

Robert J. Kresse (Orchard Park, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Two Family House [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A great movie with many outstanding performances by relatively, really relatively, unknowns. Heartwarming, humorous, nostalgic, totally elevating and causing much reflection on how humans treat one another today, in the past and with hope for the future. Very hard to forget this movie, its characters and its lessons. Hope not to.