Watch the canon of classic American mob movies, and you’ll be constantly reminded that families — both kinds of them — stick together. The Vito Corleones and Tony Sopranos of the world are quick to justify the formation of their crime organizations by saying that Italians had to look out for each other when they immigrated to this country with nothing. And they’ll defend their continued shady dealings by saying that they do it all for their wives and children. Crime might be the lifeblood of their communities, but what really matters (in their view) is that mob families always take care of each other.
Of course, the stories never end as happily as they begin. The sacred bonds of family rarely survive the stresses posed by greed, law enforcement, and the massive egos this line of work attracts. Sometimes, all it takes is a guy named Big Sam making a disrespectful comment about his cousin’s new boat to start a massacre that brings a family to its knees.
The takeaway is often that if you invite evil into your life, it eventually becomes impossible to leave it at work. When a gangster survives long enough to see his idyllic home life ruined by his own bad decisions, there’s always a regretful moment where he looks back at what could have been. But who’s to say that what could have been wasn’t also terrible?
That’s the question that Jennifer Esposito seeks to explore in her directorial debut “Fresh Kills.” The ’80s-set period piece follows the wife and two daughters of a Staten Island mob boss as they navigate the material comforts and unspoken expectations that come with living in the male-dominated world of organized crime. Esposito skillfully steers the story away from tired stereotypes we’ve seen before, like the “mob wife” seething at home while her husband cheats or the daughters who live in fear of a violent father. Instead, the film takes a nuanced look at the existential anxiety that can haunt the women in this world when things are going (relatively) well.
The Larusso family thought moving from Brooklyn to a palatial McMansion in Staten Island would be a fresh start. They’d get more space, the kids could attend a new school without fear of being bullied, and Francine (Esposito) would finally have the distance she requires to turn a blind eye to what her husband Joe (Domenick Lombardozzi) does to finance their lives. But when Francine arrives and sees that Joe omitted a key detail from the pitch — they now live next door to his mob associate Nello (Stelio Savante) — she realizes that nobody can run far enough to escape the ugly realities of this life.
That’s the lesson she tries to teach her daughters Rose (Emily Bader) and Connie (Odessa A’zion) as they grow up in the shadow of the mafia. “Fresh Kills” spans most of their childhoods, beginning in the summer of 1987 and continuing through 1998. The large canvas allows us to watch as the two girls form their own wildly divergent opinions about the family business.
Connie is endlessly loyal to her father and wildly appreciative of the lifestyle he provides her. She’s always quick to spring to his defense and even quicker to marry a young gangster and embrace life as a mob wife. Rose approaches things differently. She can see that there’s life beyond Staten Island, and she allows herself to entertain dreams of going to cosmetology school and hosting a TV show about beauty. When her father showers her with gifts — like buying a bakery for her to run without ever asking if she was interested — they feel like golden chains tying her to a life that she isn’t sure she wants.
Francine exists somewhere between the two, as if she entered life with Rose’s idealism and eventually resigned herself to Connie’s pragmatism. She’s loyal to a fault but often quietly supportive of Rose’s larger ambitions despite making a point of discouraging her. Esposito gives an incredible performance as a protective mother who has decided to live life without questioning the choices that she’s made, even if a part of her knows they might have been the wrong ones.
“Fresh Kills” is at its best when it explores the complicated nuances of mob life through small, everyday moments between Francine and her daughters. But the major plot points that comprise the skeleton of the story often veer into melodrama that isn’t executed quite as sharply. At certain points the film seems unsure of what it wants to be, injecting its straightforward ’80s production design and cinematography with more expressionistic “indie film moments” that pull away from the larger story. (There’s the artful shot of someone yelling with glee on an empty street at night.)
But occasional stylistic incoherence never derails the film because the emotional core of Francine, Connie, and Rose is so strong. Esposito portrays the three women with the kind of depth that’s normally reserved for male mob bosses, and she repeatedly proves that their decisions are every bit as complicated as trying to decide who to whack. The three actresses give deeply human performances that should remind everyone that the invisible women that these movies love to sideline are more than capable of anchoring their own stories.
Grade: B-
“Fresh Kills” premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
