The film, Laws of Gravity, depicts a sub-culture of petty thievery in Brooklyn, with a group of young friends who support themselves by stealing whatever they can. The two main characters are Jimmy and Jon, each of whom has a specific problem hanging over their head. Jimmy owes money he cannot pay back, and Jon has avoided a court date for shoplifting and is now wanted by the police. These two do not belong to or constitute a gang. Rather, the kind of sub-culture portrayed is one that is found within the working-class Brooklyn neighborhood in which the story is set. Jimmy's wife has a job, but neither her husband nor most of his friends do. They get by as they can, avoiding work as much as possible.
The remarkable thing about the way this film depicts this world is that this petty thievery is accepted as a given by all concerned. These are not the sort of criminals to make a massive plan and carry out a robbery, for instance. That would require more concentration than they are willing to give to any element in their lives. Their lives are deceptively placid for much of the time--they do very little except hang out at neighborhood sites and talk among themselves, but always beneath the surface there is the potential for violence. Violence indeed is accepted as a way of addressing problems. Jimmy tells Jon to take his girlfriend home and knock her around to teach her a lesson, and Jon accepts this advice as expected. At the same time, when Jon later hits his girlfriend at the picnic, Jimmy remonstrates with him and tells him not to hit her again, that it is wrong to hit a woman. The morality of every situation seems to be created on the spot from a series of possibilities, accepted scenarios that have been disseminated throughout the neighborhood. Clearly, that sort of domestic violence is part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Early in the film there is a fight in a bar, another form of violence that is largely ac...