When his beloved mother passes away Joe Scaravella wants to do something to honour her memory, he then risks everything by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers as the chefs.
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The struggle that Joe is feeling with the loss of his mother and the dead end job that he has found himself stuck in, all builds up to wanting to do something in her memory and that of his own grandmother as well. As he attempted to figure out her incredible cooking recipes whilst also talking to Roberta, a lifelong friend the idea for the restaurant comes around.
Althought it was never going to be easy when he attempted to open it in Staten Island, as an outsider and it seemed destined to fail. Recruiting some real life Nonnas to actually do the cooking as well, joining Roberta we get Teresa a former nun, Gia a hairdresser by trade and Antonella the friend of Joe’s high school girlfriend Olivia.
The mixture of the women begins as a competition as they want to be seen as better than the others. Arguing about the areas they were originally from, although that was more Roberta and Antonella. Judging Gia for her apperance and Teresa for the mystery of why she suddenly was no longer a nun. Within this the development of the friendships between the characters packs more heart into the film and makes the characters very likeable.
Not forgetting Joe of course, we want to see him succeed and do well with his idea. As who doesn’t want to experience some amazing cooking from real life Nonnas and women who take great pride in creating family meals. The concept was obviously a brilliant idea and it works out to be a rather delightful surprise of a film that is actually based on a true story of a real restaurant that is in New York City. That was something I did not actually realise before I started watching the film!
The performances were all impressive with Lorraine Bracco being the ultimate scene stealer and great to see her in this type of role, I mean we all know and love her from The Sopranos right? Vince Vaughn was very engaging in the leading role as Joe and brought such passion to it all. Easily one of the better films to come from Netflix.
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My wife had the cast on her talk show and Vince was incredibly charming and engaged, and the REAL Nonnas were there alongside Susan, Lorraine and Brenda! So much fun!
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