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Directed By: Ramin Niami
Written By: Ramin Niami and Patrick Dillon
Starring: Sandra Bernhard, Bai Ling, Robert John Burke, Ornella Multi, Paul Anthony Stewert and Peter Stormare
Running Time: 94 min
Festivals: Seattle (US), Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), Hampton (US), HOF (Germany), Sao Paulo (Brasil), Athens (Greece)
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Order a copy of Somewhere in the City on DVD.
A noir screwball comedy, Somewhere in the City deftly threads the overlapping stories of six residents of a New York City tenement apartment building.
Betty (Sandra Bernhard: Zoolander, The King of Comedy, Without You I'm Nothing) is a self-obsessed therapist desperately seeking Mr. Right. Naturally, she becomes the perfect self-appointed advisor to Lu Lu, a beautiful Chinese student (Bai Ling: upcoming Star Wars Episode 3, Anna and the King, Wild Wild West, Red Corner ) who is pretty desperate herself, hoping to escape the strictures of a closely knit extended family by making a Green Card marriage to just about anyone.
One floor below, Marta (Italian star Ornella Muti) is enduring the twice-a-day caresses of the tenement's beer-guzzling superintendent, an overweight skinflint who thinks himself Casanova, Charles Boyer and Rocky rolled into one. Marta's True Love is Frankie (Robert John Burke: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, RoboCop 3, No Such Thing ), a dashing but wholly incompetent crook. Their dream is to escape to Paradise and live happily ever after. That is, just as soon as Frankie and his misfit crew (including the incomparable French actress Bulle Ogier as an Uzi-toting fading femme fatale) have pulled off the heist of the decade, scheduled for this coming Friday.
Far more desperate is the case of poor Graham (Peter Stormare: Bad Boys 2, Minority Report, Chocolat, Armageddon ), a gifted and dedicated Shakespearean actor disappointed by both love and life. He too pines for Mr. Right. And, despite a marginal subsistence made up of talentless private acting students and sporadic work in television commercials, he dreams of breaking into big Hollywood movies, mostly for the springboard it will give him onto the legitimate stage.
Of course all of these hopes will be utterly irrelevant, come the Revolution that's being planned in the basement. Though equally misunderstood by his Park Avenue family and his ragtag band of Generation X followers, eloquent, post-Marxist Che (Paul Anthony Stewart: CBS' Guiding Light ) knows that he offers the earth its only hope for a non-exploitive, harmonious, non-species-centric future. That is, at least until Lu Lu's Green Card wedding night, when Che falls head over heels in love with her, and--well...that's probably a whole other story.
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Quotes about Summer in the City
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Kevin Thomas: Los Angeles Times:
"Somewhere in the City has such an endearing sensibility, good-humored and surprisingly tender, and such a wonderfully improbable cast...Sandra Bernhard, Italy's lovely Ornella Muti and French icon Bulle Ogier somehow pop up in the same film - plus a walk-on by a glamorous Karen Black. On the plus side these actresses all shine, as does the entire large cast, and there's a vibrant John Cale score, plus numbers from some hot new bands." "A lot that happens is funny and sometimes also touching." "he (Niami) and co-writer Patrick Dillon do come up with satisfying and funny finishes for all their people, including a sequence featuring former New York Mayor Ed Koch, deftly playing himself." "Niami leaves a distinctive enough impression to leave you intrigued by whatever he may do next."
Anita Gates: The New York Times:
"A Tenement Testament Laughs in the Shadows." "...funny..." "Mr. Niami has a good eye for the residents of the city's underbelly. The cast generally does a nice job. Peter Stormare is particularly strong as Graham who is strong and completely in charge until a young man he is obviously secretly in love with walks in. Paul Anthony Stewart is also appealing helpless as Che."
Renee Graham: Boston Globe:
"Niami treats his subjects with respect and has a genuine affection for them. The cast is solid and this is Bernhard's best role since she shook up the world in her 1983 debut, in Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy." It's appropriate that the role finds her in familiar cinematic territory - fringe New York , where the apple may be bruised but is still juicy and sweet at the core."
George Tabb: NY Press:
"Somewhere in the City is funny as hell."
Godfrey Cheshire: NY Press:
"Writer-director Ramin Niami, an Iranian, has an outsider's wide-eyed appreciation of the absurdities natives learn to take for granted. He's also got a sense of style lively enough to keep things in colorful motion throughout, as well as a sure way with actors; the film's bizarrely heteroclite cast includes Sandra Bernhard (as a crazy shrink), Hal Hartley veterans Robert Burke and Bill Sage, Fargo veteran Peter Stormare, gorgeous Ornella Muti and the excellent Chinese actress Bai Ling. Oh yeah, and Ed Koch, who gives the funniest turn of all!"
David Hunter: The Hollywood Reporter:
"Opening with a spooky shot traveling up the stairs of a run-of-the-mill New York tenement, with the sounds of a woman seemingly in mortal peril on the soundtrack, "Somewhere in the City" gets off to a ribald start as the screamer is revealed to be Sandra Bernhard's manic character in bed with a lover. Inspired by Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" and deftly directed by Iran-born Ramin Niami, the low-budget ensemble comedy debuted at the 1997 Seattle Film Festival and has unspooled at numerous international fests." "Concentrating on six neighbors all living desperate lives, with lots of overlapping, "Somewhere" is a Bohemian Rhapsody that's exactly the sum of its parts - entertaining with often sprightly dialogue." "...inspired casting..." "The most satisfying material involves the friendship of Bernhard's neurotic busybody and Ling's sassy rebel." "Bernhard sings "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" on the terrific soundtrack that includes original music by Velvet Underground founder John Cale."
Marcie Sillman: National Public Radio (KUOW FM Seattle):
"As if Robert Altman directed an episode of "Friends". ... beyond slapstick.. hilarious transformations ... very funny. I laughed out loud."
Dallas Observer:
" Manhattan on screen usually looks cleaner, brighter and friendlier than it is: Woody Allen's New York , Neil Simon's New York , Jerry Seinfeld's New York . Sure there are exceptions, like Martin Scorsese's Big Rotten Apple, so grim its almost stylized. But the metropolis of Somewhere in the City , a modern day Manhattan without filters or added dirt looks like the real thing: complex, frenetic, abrasive, and occasionally inspiring."
Tim Cogshell: "Entertainment Today" (LA Weekly):
"Somewhere in the City is the kind of film Woody Allen might be making if he was 40 years younger - all full of New York angst and lust. Happily, Somewhere in the City , the debut film of director Ramin Niami is a welcome departure from the usual pattern. It is darkly toned, but mostly it's just silly. It's also quirky but not desperately so. It's certainly desperately constructed, but its loose, uneven flow serves the film well, keeping it interesting as we want to see how each of the six mingling narratives resolve. As for its point, it doesn't have one, but you won't care - it's a fun movie for its own sake."
E! Online:
"A+ ... You want an offbeat story about urban neurotics? Here ya go. A warning, though: If you were thinking about moving to New York , you'll probably reconsider after seeing this. Sandra Bernhard stars as a food therapist (it's that kind of movie) who lives in a run-down apartment building with other touched types, including an exchange student (Bai Ling) in search of a green card marriage, a bumbling crook and his true love (Ornella Muti) and struggling actor (Peter Stormare). This is low-budget downtown filmmaking at its best." |
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