Nonnas
Vince Vaughn stars in a sweet and sour true-life story of a wannabe restaurateur.
For the love of food: Lorraine Bracco and Talia Shire
Photo by Jeong Park, Courtesy of Netflix.
Who would want to open a restaurant? In the words of Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn), “you make food, people eat the food, people are happy.” Well, there’s a little more to it than that. Based on the true story of ‘Enoteca Maria,’ an Italian eatery in Staten Island, Nonnas picks through the morbid details of such an outrageous endeavour. And, with the best will in the world, Scaravella gets everything wrong except for his original concept – to turn his trattoria into a home with the fare cooked by real-life Italian grandmothers (or ‘nonnas’). Yes, the food and ambience are important, but so is the location, local feeling, the design, the safety precautions, the plumbing, the electrics, the advertising and the press. Any one of the above could sink an establishment in days.
Joe Scaravella grew up in 1980s’ Brooklyn virtually tied to his mother’s apron strings as she cooked up lasagne, polpette and her very special Sunday gravy for friends and family. When, forty years later she passes away, Joe is plunged into depression. “I don’t know what tomorrow is supposed to look like, you know?” he tells his best friend, Bruno (Joe Manganiello). Then, on a whim, Joe decides to open a restaurant in Staten Island to honour her memory. His big idea is to persuade Bruno into restoring an old trattoria to his own design and advertises on Craigslist for real grandmother chefs, nonnas who can transform food into love…
There has been many a film set in the world of fine cuisine and the director Stephen Chbosky follows a familiar recipe, filling the screen with salivating close-ups of Sicilian dishes, lit by the eternal sunshine of Brooklyn and supplemented by a generous serving of uplifting songs. The food fights and constant bickering of Roberta (Lorraine Bracco of GoodFellas fame), from Sicily, and Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro of Midnight Cowboy fame), from Bologna, gets tiresome quickly, until Susan Sarandon (of Thelma & Louise fame) steps in to brighten things up. Roberta complains of having to wear compression socks to get to the bathroom. “I can barely move,” she says. “I am 73-years-old – I am done with being happy.” Even so, the real-life Susan Sarandon is 78 and she is a genuinely bright spark in the dying embers of her sorority.
There’s a certain inevitability to the outcome, a sense of the formulaic in the plotting, while the frequent establishing shots of a sunlit New York barely paper over the cracks. However, Stephen Chbosky does make some smart choices. On the soundtrack, which is resonant with vibrant Italianate numbers, there is not a whiff of Dean Martin, Louis Prima or Perry Como, while to play Joe’s best friend Bruno, Chbosky has managed to cast an actor (Manganiello) the same height as Vince Vaughn (which is no easy task as Vaughn is 6’5”). Such small things do matter.
At its best, Nonnas is a pleasantly diverting entertainment but is no match for such cuisine classics as Babette’s Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman or The Taste of Things.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Joe Manganiello, Linda Cardellini, Susan Sarandon, Drea de Matteo, Campbell Scott, Michael Rispoli, Jack Casey, Karen Giordano, Kate Eastman.
Dir Stephen Chbosky, Pro Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane and Jack Turner, Screenplay Liz Maccie, Ph Florian Ballhaus, Pro Des Diane Lederman, Ed Anne McCabe, Music Marcelo Zarvos, Costumes Brenda Abbandandolo, Dialect coach Charlotte Fleck.
Fifth Season/1Community/Madison Wells/Matador Content-Netflix.
114 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 9 May 2025. Cert. 12.
