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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Robert De Niro speaks in quiet, even tones throughout much of the dolorous family melodrama "City by the Sea." De Niro is Vincent LaMarca, a respected Manhattan homicide detective who has cut himself off from an earlier time of trouble out in Long Beach, Long Island. Years ago, Vincent's father kidnapped a baby for ransom; the child, hidden in the back seat of a car, accidentally suffocated and the father was convicted of murder and executed. Later, Vincent, as a grown man, ran away from Long Beach, leaving behind his quarrelsome wife (Patty LuPone) and their young son, Joey (James Franco), who is now about twenty-one and a junkie. The city itself, once a resort filled with happy bathers, has turned into South Bronx by the Sea, and Joey lives like a rat in an abandoned casino on the boardwalk. De Niro tells his girlfriend (Frances McDormand) about these disasters as if he were describing a hard day on the beat. When she looks stunned, he just repeats the facts. He has lived with these sorrows for years; his manner suggests that he will always live with them, that you stick to business and do your job whatever mess you have made of your life. But his stoicism is just tight-lipped enough to make us...
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