‘Somewhere In Queens’ Review: Ray Romano’s Directorial Debut Is Pleasant If Forgettable [Tribeca]

Ray Romano is a good actor, and seems like a nice guy. These are the two primary takeaways from “Somewhere in Queens,” which the stand-up comedian, character actor, and sitcom star co-wrote, co-produced, directed, and starred in. That bit of muti-hyphenating isn’t as much of a stretch as the casual observer might think; he co-created and wrote several episodes of his post-“Raymond” series “Men of a Certain Age,” and has been spending some time on Scorsese’s sets, so the filmmaking here is confident and competent, if not particularly inspired.

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Romano is telling the story of a big working-class Italian family, a fact made clear from literally frame one, as traditional Italian music plays over home video footage of a boisterous Italian wedding, and its to-camera testimonials (“Treat her right because if not I’m gonna beat the fuck outta you!”). The family in question is the Russos, a big, rowdy crew led by patriarch Dominick (Tony Lo Bianco), who owns and operates the construction company where everyone else works. Leo (Romano) is something of the second-choice son – his younger, slicker brother Frank (Sebastian Manisalco) is the foreman, while Leo works with the rest of the crew.

His wife Angela (Laurie Metcalf) is a tough-as-nails cancer survivor; their son Matthew (Jacob Ward), whom everybody calls “Sticks” on account of his long legs, is about to graduate high school. He’s an awkward, quiet kid, but he comes alive on the basketball court, and though he’s not NBA material (in a nice subversion of expectation, the first game we see ends with him blowing the last big shot), he’s good enough to get a scholarship to a decent school. 

But there are complications. Matthew’s got himself a girlfriend, his first, a nice (but very WASPy) girl named Dani (Sadie Stanley) from over in Forest Hills. Alas, like many a first relationship, it’s short-lived; the subsequent heartbreak threatens to torpedo Sticks’ big college tryout, so his father quietly goes to the girlfriend and asks a favor:  “Do you think you could just… go back out with him? For three weeks?”

Romano’s work in this scene underscores what a good and subtle actor he’s become; it’s a moment of plot contrivance, but he plays it convincingly and spins it into a lovely little monologue about how Sticks was when he was as a kid, and how he’s changed. He also gets every possible laugh out of his tendency towards bad small talk, or towards nonsensical attempts at wisdom, like  “The heart, it goes wherever it wants. Like a coyote.”

But he doesn’t seem much of a director, at least in terms of getting his cast on the same page. Metcalf is one of our finest actors, and though her chemistry and comfort with Romano is palpable – they get a good rhythm going in their two scenes – she’s way overplaying it, leaning in on the Queens dialect and Italian gestures with near-sitcom broadness. She has a few memorable moments though, many of them with Dierdre Friel, a force of nature as the Russo sister who still lives at home. And Lo Bianco, one of the great ‘70s character actors (he was in “The French Connection” and starred in one of the era’s great unsung genre movies, Larry Cohen’s “God Told Me To”), wears his patriarchal gravitas with ease; he has a nice beat near the end where, with his back turned to his son, he’s finally able to say something kind. The film’s most authentic moments, in fact, are its big family scenes, most of them around the dinner table, as they bust balls and crack running jokes with a sense of lived-in history and longstanding irritation. 

A bit too much time is spent on the Sticks/Dani relationship, but both actors are charming. Romano, to put it mildly, does not seem terribly tuned in to how the teens interact these days. However, he nails a couple of timeless feelings: the specific, awkward vibe of a relationship that only one person knows is ending, and the end-of-the-world intensity of your first breakup. And when it all comes to a head, Romano and Mark Stegemann’s screenplay perceptively gets at how all of Leo’s (and Angela’s) questionable actions are rooted in various, long-standing woes, disappointments, and anxieties. 

But even then, it never feels like much is at stake. “Somewhere in Queens” meanders as amiably as its title, with efficient little montages and heartfelt, truthful monologues accompanied by that bane of the indie comedy/drama, the gentle guitar and piano score. You can see the conflicts and dramatic beats coming from a mile away, and the corniness of the ending is absolutely immeasurable. It’s an inoffensive and even likable picture, but not a particularly compelling one. [C+]

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