Before my grandmother lost her eyesight, she would often ask me, “What movie should I go see?” and as the years wore on, that became an increasingly difficult question, not because she was a tough audience, but because of the shrinking availability of the charming, midbudget movies she typically enjoyed. But I think she would quite enjoy “Nonnas,” a film that fills a much-needed gap between spectacle-filled blockbusters and heavy dramas. Director Stephen Chbosky, always adept at weaving heavier emotions into warm stories of human connection, brings his skills to bear on this tale of finding family in the aftermath of grief and alienation. It’s comfort food cinema, and one that plays like a celebration not only of how dining brings us together, but also of its four veteran actresses who get plenty of time to shine.
Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) is lost and despondent after the loss of his mother, and in trying to honor her memory, he starts cooking up some of her recipes. Brought back to how those dishes made him feel, Joe decides to use his inheritance to open an Italian restaurant on Staten Island. His hook is that the meals will be prepared by real “Nonnas,” Italian grandmothers using the recipes they made for their families. He pulls in his mom’s old friends Roberta (Lorraine Bracco) and Gia (Susan Sarandon) as well as Teresa (Talia Shire), a retired nun who he finds via the restaurant’s Craigslist ad, and Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro), the neighbor of Joe’s high school sweetheart, Olivia (Linda Cardellini). As Joe works to make the restaurant come alive with the help of Olivia as well as old friends Bruno (Joe Manganiello) and Stella (Drea de Matteo), the four Nonnas rediscover a passion for life they thought was behind them.
There’s unquestionably a bit of sugar in the sauce here, and at times this plays a bit like an ad for the real Joe Scaravella’s restaurant. But the underlying warmth in Chbosky’s direction and Liz Maccie’s script papers over that, and you get a movie that feels like a nice ode to how food brings us together, and it’s the sense of community that can start to heal our grief. It’s how the movie’s line about “Nobody grows old at the table,” is able to be about returning to a place of solace, forgetting the troubles of the present, and building a path to the future. Rather than positioning nostalgia as a prison or old age as a curse, “Nonnas” celebrates how cooking can transcend those barriers because of how it functions both as personal expression and a means of connection. In an age of the “Yes, Chef!” intensity of “The Bear” and “The Menu,” this film provides a nice counterbalance where you have old ladies casually sniping at each other and cooking up a sheep’s head.
While it’s nice to see Vaughn play a character who’s so openly earnest, the star attraction here is Bracco, Sarandon, Shire, and Vaccaro. Rather than serving as wallpaper or a pop of color for Joe’s arc, the movie makes sure to give these women space to hold the screen independent of a younger man’s journey. There are sadly fewer opportunities for older women in movies, and it’s great that “Nonnas” not only makes space for these performers, but that they’re just as much of a draw as Vaughn. It’s not that these roles are as good as the ones that earned these actors their original acclaim, but they’re also not the dregs that make you wonder how they wandered into this picture (e.g. Sarandon in “Blue Beetle” or Bracco voicing a seagull in Robert Zemeckis’ misbegotten “Pinocchio”). Like their characters, the roles here are to remind us that these women shouldn’t be forgotten, and they still have plenty to offer when provided the right ingredients.
“Nonnas” isn’t fine dining, and in age of stories about tortured genius chefs aching for Michelin stars, I’m not sure we need that. Sometimes you need comfort food, and I know those are the kind of feel-good pictures my grandmother enjoyed. I could never convince her to see something like “Oppenheimer” or “Sinners,” but she loves films like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” “Nonnas” offers the same kind of familiarity where you’re not aiming to have the best meal of your life, but one that you find satisfying and reheats well.
The 40 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now