TWO FAMILY HOUSE

Year: 2000
USA: Lions Gate Films
Cast: Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald, Katherine Narducci, Kevin Conway, Matt Servitto, Michele Santopietro, Louis Guss, Rosemary De Angelis, Victor Arnold, Richard B Shull
Director: Raymond DeFelitta
Country: USA
USA Rated: R for language and brief sexuality
USA Release Date: 20 October 2000 (Limited Release - wider)
USA Release Date: 6 October 2000 (Limited Release - New York)


Synopsis

TWO FAMILY HOUSE is the story of a lovable loser in pursuit of an elusive dream. Buddy Visalo (Michael Rispoli), a frustrated singer with genuine talent, once had a shot at the big time. Discouraged from aiming too high by his pragmatic and often pessimistic wife, Estelle (Katherine Narducci), Buddy's modest dreams of greatness have been reduced to an endless series of failed moneymaking schemes. But this time, Buddy is certain he has come up with a plan that will work. He wants to buy a two family house for himself and Estelle. They will live upstairs and convert the ground floor into a neighbourhood bar where Buddy can perform and play host to his customers.

On moving day, Buddy is prepared for his wife's disgruntlement, his friends' disbelief, and his home's disrepair. However he is surprised by the unwanted tenants in the upstairs apartment, a very pregnant (and very lovely) young Irish woman, Mary O'Neary, (Kelly Macdonald) and her older, alcoholic husband Jim, (Kevin Conway). Ignoring Buddy's attempts to play the irate homeowner, they stubbornly refuse to leave the premises. An upsetting encounter with a determined Buddy and his pals (Vincent Pastore, Anthony Arkin, and Saul Stein) causes Mary to go into a sudden, but successful, labour. After her loutish husband bolts, abandoning his wife and her newborn baby, Mary is alone in the world. Guilty about evicting her, Buddy secretly helps Mary to find and pay for a little apartment he can ill afford.

Gradually, Buddy realizes that he is falling in love with Mary, and that, of all the people in his increasingly complicated life, she's the only one who believes in him. Shuttling between two jobs and two households, Buddy's dream of being a homeowner and an entertainer is beginning to look impossible. But that's when he decides to fight even harder, finding the strength to choose between the only world he has ever known and the world where Buddy Visalo, singer, dreamer, and a man in love for the first time, is king.