THE STORY – After losing his beloved mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual nonnas — grandmothers, as the chefs.
THE CAST – Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Joe Manganiello, Linda Cardellini & Susan Sarandon
THE TEAM – Stephen Chbosky (Director) & Liz Maccie (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 111 Minutes
Some of the most cherished family memories are made around the kitchen table. Home-cooked meals bring people together. All over the world, signature dishes and secret ingredients get passed down from one generation to the next. These comforting expressions of love inspire the cuisine we eat, not just in our homes but at restaurants. In 2007, Jody “Joe” Scaravella opened the Italian restaurant Enoteca Maria in Staten Island, New York. Driven by the need to nurture his grief and feel connected to his late mother, Maria, Joe employed Italian grandmothers (referred to as “nonnas” in Italian culture) to cook the food. The prompts were to have fun and make dishes as if for their families. Joe’s concept proved a good idea for a restaurant; can the same be said for a film adaptation? While director Stephen Chbosky and writer Liz Maccie have the heart in the right place with “Nonnas,” honoring generations of family tradition, a formulaic approach limits how far this inspiring story can go creatively.
Shortly after his mother’s funeral, Joe (Vince Vaughn) settles back into his middling day job at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Back home, he turns to cooking generations-old family recipes for comfort, trying to recreate the specific flavors he remembers from childhood. Having grown up around food-centric family gatherings, observing his mother and grandmother in the kitchen, Joe understands the emotional significance of sharing food. So, to honor their memory, he uses the money from his mother’s inheritance to open an Italian restaurant with zero business management experience but a genius nostalgia plan to hire nonnas as chefs. Helped by his best friends Bruno (Joe Manganiello) and Stella (Drea de Matteo), plus generations of a chosen family, Joe makes Enoteca Maria a reality.
From the moment “Nonnas” gets cooking, it’s easy to piece this eventual plot together, from the trajectory of restaurant growing pains to putting out fires in the kitchen to everything miraculously working out in the end. Sprinkle in a “Ratatouille”-inspired finale and finito. The real-life inspiration behind “Nonnas” seemed layered enough to make for a more satisfying adaptation on screen, especially given the Italian blood running through the veins of this ensemble. The film instantly livens up once the actual nonnas — Roberta (Lorraine Bracco) from Sicily, Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro) from Bologna, and Teresa (Talia Shire) from the Bronx — feature into the plot. Each nonna has a story; Roberta hasn’t spoken to her children in years. Antonella is navigating the loss of her son and helping her neighbor Olivia (Linda Cardellini) through a separate level of grief altogether. Teresa is a miracle worker and a former nun who was forced to leave her convent.
There’s an endearing energy to the nonnas sharing their signature dishes, expressing their Italian nuances, and building on their relationships to become a chosen family. However, the potential to explore these characters’ perspectives beyond mildly amusing kitchen interactions and stubborn personal quips goes largely unfulfilled. One scene in the film’s second act attempts to serve more depth; the restaurant’s pastry chef, Gia (Susan Sarandon), who works in a salon and gives the nonnas makeovers, asks each of them afterward what their story is. It’s predictably clear that the film sets up this discussion as a source of conflict for the restaurant’s success to fix.
Some sincerity can be found in the resilient nonnas starting to voice some of their buried interior conflict, having gained newfound confidence (and a new family) as chefs at Enoteca Maria. However, without much time spent on getting to know who these women are, the emotional resolutions they reach at the end feel rushed and one-dimensional. The film lacks precision and emphasis on the nonnas being the heart of this story. At the very least, their distinctive personalities shine through dedicated performances by Bracco, Vaccaro, and Shire. The three iconic Italian-American actresses get to have fun with playful, though occasionally exaggerated, dialogue and effortlessly bite into more dramatic moments when the story calls for it.
It’s easy to identify with the impulse of taking a risk, like opening a restaurant for the first time, to feel closer to lost loved ones. Having a group of nonnas cook their recipes, as though cooking for their families, recreates a sense of comfort that Joe wants to share. The concept is a balm for his grief and also speaks to how dishes become a signature of the people who make them. The film incorporates a few neat nuances about growing up in an Italian household and asking what exactly goes into a dish or how much of an ingredient to use, only to hear the answer that it’s from the heart. The secret ingredient of a dish often stays a secret, adding to the yearning to recreate dishes that only one’s nonna could make.
While “Nonnas” does an adequate job of letting the theme of family cooking traditions resonate, the film follows a predictable narrative structure. The screenplay takes a simplistic approach to introducing the characters and what they mean to one another. Much of the focus follows Joe’s experiences of getting the restaurant off the ground, balancing kitchen training with his day job, and reconnecting with a high school classmate (Olivia) he had ditched at prom. Vaughn and Cardellini bring sincerity into their roles, with the former toning down his signature sense of humor for a more introspective turn. However, their characters’ newfound relationship lacks the chemistry and precision to feel believable. This also undermines the intended emotional resonance of Joe trying to make amends for ditching her at prom years earlier, a stunt that feels more cringey than heartfelt.
Even the Italian cuisine, beyond a few delectable feast montages sprinkled throughout, doesn’t get the showcase one would hope for, given the film’s plot. As indicated in many storytelling elements here, the film misses opportunities to explore the nonnas’ perspectives more deeply and emphasize what makes their dishes so personal to them. Additionally, the film’s pacing prolongs the restaurant’s impact on the nonnas, which is reduced to a quick montage of each character finding the confidence to address things they weren’t able to previously. “Nonnas” has a simple story and doesn’t do much to stand out creatively. However, the film does serve as a welcome reminder of how important family is, and not strictly the family one is born into, but chosen families and communities that lift each other’s spirits.
