Somewhere in Queens Review: Ray Romano’s Family Comedy Doesn’t Get Its Hands Dirty

Many of the actors occasionally elevate the film above some of the more clichéd family humor.

Somewhere in Queens
Photo: Roadside Attractions

Intermittently funny and touching, but ultimately forgettable, Ray Romano’s overcooked family comedy Somewhere in Queens is about a protective couple who can’t quite let their son go. Leo (Romano) and Angie Russo (Laurie Metcalf) fret over nearly everything to do with “Sticks” (Jacob Ward), a gawky and quiet high school basketball star on the verge of graduation, but never quite get around to asking what he wants to do with his life. If there wasn’t an ABC Afterschool Special about this kind of parenting, there should have been.

Not everything in the film is boilerplate. Some of the interpersonal jabs have a bit more sting than expected and the lengths to which Leo takes his helicopter parenting is shocking. But most of the story, as written by Romano and Mark Stegemann, is predictable, such as the opening scene at a basketball game. Seeing how Leo is equally enraptured by watching Sticks play and the attention he gets as the doting dad who never misses a game makes it all too obvious there will be a moment about 15 minutes before the end where Leo’s attentiveness is revealed as selfishness. When the film actually does something unexpected, the moment doesn’t land.

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The story kicks off when a scout mentions to Leo that Sticks has a shot at a scholarship for Drexel University. From that point on, Leo’s driving principle becomes selling Sticks on attending Drexel. Sticks doesn’t appear interested in much besides his girlfriend, Dani (Sadie Stanley), whose existence he has been keeping secret and whose free-spirited nature makes her something of a threat to the ever-hovering Leo and Angie. While Leo’s concern about Sticks’s future is understandable, the Drexel fixation quickly starts to read like a more benign version of how Leo appeared to have been bullied into joining his family’s construction business.

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After Dani breaks up with Sticks and he spirals into a funk, Somewhere in Queens takes one of its only unexpected turns by having Leo make an offer to Dani: Get back together with my son for a few more weeks so he’s in better mental shape for the Drexel tryout. It’s a remarkably weird and revealing moment, showing the depth of Leo’s panicked fixation on a future of imagined glory for his son and how it could reflect on him. But though the film makes sure that Leo gets his comeuppance, delivering a convenient all-family blowout argument where the skeletons come jumbling out of the closet, it never really grapples with the issues raised.

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It could be argued that this sitcom-ish family comedy shouldn’t be expected to deal forthrightly with tougher material. But while Romano and Stegemann leaven Somewhere in Queens with deadpan one-liners, they also bite off more than they can chew. Angie’s sizzling anger is explained a bit too neatly by her being a recent cancer survivor who’s terrified of the risk of recurrence but refuses group therapy. Sticks’s quiet nature is sourced to a years-long crippling anxiety that could make him too scared to leave the house, much less move to Philadelphia for school. Given what Angie and Sticks are contending with, Leo’s fumbling version of a midlife crisis seems not just less comedic but monumentally uninteresting.

An only slightly tweaked variation on Romano’s standard-issue schlemiel, with a heavy emphasis on hangdog stammering and poor impulse control, Leo gets laughs but remains a stock creation. Similarly, his big Italian American clan, all crosstalk and oversharing over platters of pasta and meatballs, is presented lovingly though still feels overly familiar. A regrettable subplot involving a widowed customer, Pamela (Jennifer Esposito), who may have eyes for Leo might have played better as the B story in a sitcom episode.

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Romano has a knack for coaxing performances from his cast that often impress in spite of the dialogue. Metcalf is particularly superb in how she invests seemingly mundane irritation with existential angst. Many of the character actors, especially comic Sebastian Maniscalco as Leo’s petty and thin-skinned jerk of a brother, bring a snap to their work that occasionally elevates Somewhere in Queens above some of the more clichéd family humor. But given the limitations of the material, there’s only so much even a hardworking cast can be expected to do.

Score: 
 Cast: Ray Romano, Laurie Metcalf, Tony Lo Bianco, Sebastian Maniscalco, Jennifer Esposito, Jacob Ward, Sadie Stanley, Dierdre Friel, Jon Manfrellotti  Director: Ray Romano  Screenwriter: Ray Romano, Mark Stegemann  Distributor: Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions  Running Time: 106 min  Rating: R  Year: 2022

Chris Barsanti

Chris Barsanti has written for the Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and Online Film Critics Society.

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