Based on a Book

Outside Providence is a hilarious yet melancholy novel of a young man's coming of age in the 1970s. When Timothy Dunphy, native of working-class Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is packed off to a fancy prep school, he finds that the privileged elite is hardly im... Read More

Outside Providence is a hilarious yet melancholy novel of a young man's coming of age in the 1970s. When Timothy Dunphy, native of working-class Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is packed off to a fancy prep school, he finds that the privileged elite is hardly immune to life's screwups. Dunphy must reconcile his pedigreed schoolmates with his mongrel friends back home--including Drugs Delaney, whose diet consists mainly of vitamin Qs (Quaaludes), and Bunny Cote, who thinks New England is a state.

Not far below Dunphy's comic demeanor churn powerful fears of abandonment by those he loves best: his mother, his girlfriend, and his closest friend. And he must come to terms with his complex relationship with the person he hates most, his father. As he struggles to live with the paradox of somehow loving the same man he blames for his family's tragedies, Dunphy begins to understand and accept life's betrayals, and learns how to trust in love.

Outside Providence was written by the Farrelly Brothers, known for the outrageous comedies Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary. On the surface, Outside Providence seems to be of the same ilk--there's a three-legged, one-eyed dog, ... Read More

Outside Providence was written by the Farrelly Brothers, known for the outrageous comedies Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary. On the surface, Outside Providence seems to be of the same ilk--there's a three-legged, one-eyed dog, physical humor with a kid in a wheelchair, and a character nicknamed Jiz, among other things. But despite all that, the movie is an almost-gentle coming-of-age comedy, something like a suburban New England Amarcord with a lot of unrepentant drug humor. The plot doesn't sound promising: pothead Tim Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy) gets sent to prep school by his father (Alec Baldwin), who wants to keep him out of trouble. But a fair amount of smoking and boozing goes on at that school, too, despite the watchful eye of the administrators. Dunphy also falls for Jane (Amy Smart), a richer and smarter girl whom he wins over. All this could just as easily be the plot of some mediocre Porky's rip-off, but the Farrelly Brothers' script has the grit of real experience, while the direction (by Michael Corrente) and acting carefully avoid smirks and easy gags; the movie is funnier for it. Baldwin initially seems miscast, but over the course of the film delivers a solid performance; Hatosy and Smart are sincere and unaffected. The result is a low-key, modest, but genuinely affecting movie about surmounting class differences and coping with loss--that also has a lot of jokes that push the boundaries of political correctness. Quite a balancing act. --Bret Fetzer