Grade: B+

Verdict: A warm, surprising tale of life, love and prejudice on Staten Island.

Details: Starring Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald, Katherine Narducci. Rated R for language and brief sexuality. One hour, 44 minutes.

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Review: While a crooner warbles "I'm Confessing That I Love You" and the screen fills with characters wearing '50s clothes, you may brace yourself for a tidy bit of pre-packaged nostalgia. But the warm and surprising "Two Family House" takes us to a postwar Staten Island that's charmingly retro in some ways, but also pocked by the matter-of-fact prejudices in the years before the civil rights movement.

"House" introduces us to Buddy Visalo (Michael Rispoli), a decent Italian-American whose dream of being a singer have been crushed by his practical-minded wife, Estelle (Katherine Narducci). After a series of failed jobs, from limo driver to pizza delivery, Buddy has a new dream. He buys a dilapidated duplex house, planning to turn the downstairs into his own tavern and live above it with Estelle.

One big problem: The tenants already living upstairs, drunken Irishman Jim (Kevin Conway) and his pregnant young wife, Mary (Kelly Macdonald), have no intention of moving out.

Much of the pleasure of "House" comes from its plot developments. So let's just say that this encounter with his unwanted neighbors leads gradually to Buddy's awakening to the realization that he's not living the life he wants to. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta, who earned the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, shows us a rigid social order where men and women are virtually separate races. Buddy hangs with his pals at the local bar. Estelle gossips with hers at the diner. It's a closed world where prejudices - against the Irish and especially against blacks - are a matter of course.

So it's as much to Buddy's surprise as anyone's that he develops a gradual meeting of the minds with Mary, one of the most scorned women in Staten Island. The movie builds their friendship with small details and little grace notes, propelled by an unseen narrator whose surprising identity is revealed midway through the story.

Rispoli makes us believe in the gradual transformation from a regular joe to someone ready to make drastic changes; in his life; he has one indelible breakdown moment when he admits to Mary that he's desperate for someone to talk to. Though her role is almost too sympathetic, Macdonald gives Mary some nice prickly moments.

While Estelle is a devious scold, Narducci earns our sympathy because we see that she's the product of her times. By its end, "Two Family House" skillfully questions what constitutes a family, and comes up with the right answer: Whatever your heart tells you family is.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service