Sidewalks Of New York

Synopsis: Tommy Riley, (Edward Burns) is a television producer who gets dumped by his girlfriend and kicked out of the apartment they share. He begins to date divorced high-school teacher, Maria (Rosario Dawson), who has been single for a year after divorcing unfaithful husband, Ben (David Krumholtz), a doorman. Tommy starts looking for a new apartment, where he meets real estate agent Annie Matthews (Heather Graham). Annie is unhappily married to Griffin (Stanley Tucci), a dentist who's having an affair with Ashley (Brittany Murphy), a young waitress. All the while Ashley is being courted at the restaurant she works at by Ben.

Whilst the tag-line and synopsis of Sidewalks of New York may sound like any number of Woody Allen's romantic-comedy outings down Fifth Avenue, (and, lets face it, Allen still has a mortgage on the breezy sub-genre), there is enough original activity going on here to distance itself from the bulk of Allen's work. Edward Burns, director and star of The Brothers McMullen and She's The One, has produced a well-intentioned film that captures the daily peaks and troughs, and crossed wires, of six young-ish New Yorkers.

Here Burns manages to avoid some of Allen's pitfalls, principally by having a likeable protagonist, Tommy; a guy never appearing smug, contrite, or too comfortable with his surrounds. Burns, as the very masculine Tommy, who gives the impression of being only a few ill-measured remarks away from a kerb-side brouhaha, invests a degree of sensitivity and humour into his role.

Along with Tommy, the five other characters each take turns doing an "interview" with an off-screen figure; where they muse (briefly) on love, sex & fidelity. The central theme of the film is fidelity, and it's a subject that Burns tackles successfully, eschewing a number of realistic and uncomfortable moments and performances, particularly with Griffin (Stanley Tucci). Griffin is an entirely unlikable philanderer, and his ongoing lies and selfish behaviour force the viewer to question what anyone would see in the guy in the first place. This is one of the failings of the film - at times there is a lack of insight into the emotions and estimations of these New Yorkers. A number of characters meet, and start dating, without any real evidence of emotional involvement or engagement. Burns overcomes this minor failing by ensuring the dialogue rings true, the standard cliches of romance-comedies are avoided, and by keeping the film ticking along at an entertaining pace. The viewer is never forced to endure the apparently compulsory exercise of so many films in the romance genre, that have a lead character talk to camera, or via a voice-over, saying things like, "Why me, why am I single when there are so many people out there? " Such despondency is happily lacking in this film and some light comedy takes its place, primarily via Carpo (Dennis Farina) who is Tommy's boss, tanned to within an inch of his live and full of man-to-man "advice" like he's Hugh Hefner's right hand man.

In the wash-up Sidewalks of New York is an entirely likeable film, one that benefits from being realistic and level-headed and by staying well above the cynical waterline.

 

 

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