MOVIE REVIEW
“LAST NIGHT IN ROZZIE”
Not rated. In the Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBoston, May 6-16, online, iffboston.org)
Grade: B+
A mini “Stand by Me” with a whopping Oedipal twist, “Last Night in Rozzie” (i.e., Boston’s Roslindale) begins when corporate lawyer Ronald Russo (Neil Brown Jr., TV’s “SEAL Team”) is summoned from Manhattan to Boston and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital by a voice out of the past and almost from the grave.
The voice belongs to Ronnie’s childhood friend Joey Donovan (Jeremy Sisto, TV’s “FBI”). After a life of heavy drinking, Joey has terminal liver cancer. His dying wish to Ronnie, who owes him big time, is that Ronnie bring Joey’s son J.J. (James Di Filippi) to the hospital to see his father and say good-bye. Joey has not seen his preteen son since infancy because his ex-wife Pattie Barry (Nicky Whelan), according to Joey, has not allowed it. She got clean after she got pregnant, and after Joey drove the family car with the family inside it into a tree on the Jamaicaway, injuring himself and his wife (J.J. was safe in his car seat), Pattie was through with Joey.
Ronnie, who for reasons not quite clear sleeps in his posh Audi instead of a hotel, has problems of his own. His office is in the middle of a big, international deal and he’s not there. He also drinks and self-harms, burning his inner arm with a propane lighter. He talks about his mother (Maureen Keiller). But we do not meet her until an abrupt, awkwardly staged reunion in the second act.
While we watch scenes of present day Ronnie, Joey, Pattie and J.J., we also see flashbacks to when Joey and Ronnie were players on the Roslindale baseball team in their youth (and played by actors Ryan Canale and Greyson Cage). Once upon a time, pitcher Joey was two outs from a perfect game before he threw a ball at a player’s head and got thrown out.
In order to ingratiate himself with Pattie and J.J., Ronnie offers to take them to a high-priced Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway. Although he has lived in New York for many years, Ronnie remains a staunch Red Sox fan. Joey, who has nothing left to lose, has a devil-may-care attitude to match, and Sisto is fun to watch. But Joey becomes incensed when he thinks Ronnie has a date with his ex-wife. The fact is Ronnie is attracted to Pattie. In adolescence, Ronnie, who never knew his father, used to leave unsigned notes for classmate Pattie in her yard. A single mother, Pattie now lives with her young son in Jamaica Plain and is studying to be a therapist. Lord knows, all these characters could use one.
“Last Night in Rozzie,” which was written and produced by Roslindale-bred and Roxbury Latin School-educated Ryan McDonough, is steeped in Boston baseball lore and boasts a traumatic event featuring a metal baseball bat and Boston’s own Kevin Chapman as Joey’s abusive father. Triple-deckers abound. The film teases the terrible event that marked Ronnie’s and Joey’s young lives and separated them for decades and tackles the themes of guilt, regret and remorse with intelligence and sympathy.
Director Sean Gannet, who also helmed a short version of “Last Night in Rozzie,” makes some odd choices. But he is great with the cast, and they repay him with fine work. At a brisk 80 minutes, “Last Night in Rozzie,” which is part of this year’s Independent Film Festival Boston (May 6-16), is an emotional zinger.
(“Last Night in Rozzie” contains profanity and scenes of self-harming and other violence.)
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