Producers: Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane and Jack Turner Director: Stephen Chbosky Screenplay: Liz Maccie Cast: Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Linda Cardellini, Susan Sarandon, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo, Campbell Scott, Michael Rispoli, Theodore Helm, Kate Eastman, Karen Giordano and Richie Moriarty Distributor: Netflix
Grade: C+
Like a dish of rich vanilla ice cream, “Nonnas” is bland but goes down easy, the sort of feel-good dramedy about food and family older audiences will happily eat up despite its high sugar content. Stephen Chbosky’s movie is based on the life of Jody “Joe” Scaravella, a Staten Island restaurateur, who opened Enoteca Maria in honor of his mother and the tradition of big, boisterous family meals she and her mother had hosted in their home.
In a nostalgically glossy opening, schoolboy Joey (Theodore Helm) navigates one of those gatherings—a typical Sunday in his Brooklyn home— while his mother (Kate Eastman) and grandmother (Karen Giordano) prepare the feast in the kitchen. Joy watches rapt as his nonna makes her special gravy and gives him a taste.
Cut to decades later. Joe (Vince Vaughn), a mechanic in the metro bus system, is grieving his mother’s death, consoled by his childhood friend Bruno (Joe Manganiello), a contractor, and Bruno’s wife Stella (Drea de Matteo). Seeing Joe’s inability to get past his loss, reflected in his repeated efforts to replicate the meals his mother made for him, they advise him to take the life insurance money she left and do something for himself.
What he impulsively decides, during a jaunt to Staten Island’s open-air market, is to reopen a closed restaurant he finds nearby, but with a difference. He intends to staff the kitchen with actual Italian grandmothers who will prepare the dishes they’ve made in their homes and thereby create a true family atmosphere for the customers. He enlists Bruno to refurbish the place despite his pal’s initial concern about the financial viability of the concept.
Then he goes about finding his staff of nonnas. His first recruit is his late mother’s best friend Roberta (Lorraine Bracco), who’s living in a retirement home. At the outdoor market he bumps into Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro) choosing tomatoes at a stall run by Al (Michael Rispoli); she’s being squired around by her next-door neighbor Olivia (Linda Cardinelli), a lawyer who was Joe’s high school classmate as well as his prom date, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Teresa (Talia Shire), a mousy former nun, responds to his advertisement on Craigslist. Finally Gia (Susan Sarandon), his mother’s erstwhile hairdresser who makes wonderful pastries, takes charge of desserts.
What follows is a warmhearted but entirely predictable account of how Joe’s dream meets with a succession of obstacles but ultimately prevails against apparently insuperable odds. The nonnas, coming from different regions and representing varied gastronomic traditions, squabble, but a session at Gia’s salon, followed by a talk-it-through session, resolves their rivalries. Joe needs to keep his city job to pay for the renovations, so his fellow workers are happy to fool his officious boss (Richie Moriarty) into thinking he’s at the garage when he’s absent. A kitchen fire leads to a visit from a city inspector that threatens to put the kibosh on the entire enterprise until Teresa drops to her knees and prays for a miracle, which arrives on cue (though with a non-miraculous explanation). And when escalating expenses cause a rift with Bruno, the problem is solved by an act of selfless friendship on the contractor’s part, one requiring him to sell a cherished car.
Even after the restaurant opens, hostility against outsiders from Al, and Joe’s inability to get news coverage for the place, are overcome, the first by a stern lecture from Antonella and the second by a visit to a prominent food critic (Campbell Scott). By the end happy customers are joining in a joyous group dance after savoring such heavenly dishes as Capuzzelle, or stuffed sheep’s head.
There are, inevitably, further saccharine addenda—a budding romance between Joe and Olivia, who still remembers how their prom date soured; the revelation of why Teresa left the convent, the result of what used to be euphemistically termed in ecclesiastical circles a “special relationship”; and Joe’s reluctance to open a letter from his mother left for him in Roberta’s care, which turns out to contain…well, something he’s always wanted.
How much of this comes from the true story Liz Maccie’s script is based on is a moot point. What’s undoubtedly true is that though the nonnas here (including Gia, the single woman who doesn’t really fit the bill, and Teresa, who’s presumably never married either) are stereotypes, that doesn’t matter when they’re played by actresses as winning as Bracco, Vacarro, Shire and Sarandon, all of whom prove irresistible, refusing to become the “super old ladies” played by the likes of Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Sally Field in movies such as “Book Club” and “80 for Brady.”
It’s the “youngsters” who bring things down. Vaughn is oddly drab as Joe, meandering through the movie in semi-sleepwalking mode. He’s obviously underplaying, but he tamps down his usual volatility to such an extent that Joe’s personality practically disappears. His romance with Cardinelli’s bright but rather distant Olivia is curiously limp, more a pro forma subplot than a convincing late-in-life rebirth. In fact, the best element of Joe’s story, emotionally speaking, is his relationship with Manganiello’s Bruno, which is also pretty stereotypical but nonetheless touching.
Still, despite the emptiness at the center, “Nonnas” is a slice of cinematic comfort food that will prove a sentimental crowd-pleaser with older audiences. Chbosky and editor Anne McCabe take it at a leisurely pace, allowing the grandmotherly types plenty of time to register the charm beneath their feisty exteriors, and cinematographer Florian Ballhaus gives the New Jersey locations (including the shuttered Spiritos restaurant in Elizabeth, standing in for Enoteca Maria), along with Diane Lederman’s production design, a glistening look.
But Marcelo Zarvos’ score beats you over the head with obviousness; how many times can one take another tarantella or repeat of “Funiculi Funicula”? In the end while “Nonnas” intends to warm the heart, too often its cloying clichés might induce heartburn instead.