Jack and I quite enjoyed this movie which is based on the true story of an Italian-American man who creates a Staten Island restaurant in honor of his late mother and grandmother, hiring a quartet of random grandmothers (nonna means grandma in Italian) to cook. Vince Vaughn is the restaurateur, and the nonnas are Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, and Lorraine Bracco. Because I care, I have sorted the actresses by age above, respectively 85, 81, 78, and 70. I think Bracco makes a remark about 70 being old (I can't find it now) but I do remember our laughing out loud at it, considering that we're a bit older than that and she is the baby of the group!
Also supporting are Linda Cardellini, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo, and Michael Rispoli. And the real Joe (Jody) Scaravella, whose story this is, has an uncredited cameo as the guy with the cloud of chin length curly gray hair.
Steven Chbosky directs from the script by his wife Liz Maccie and Scaravella has story credit. Everyone named above, except Chbosky, has some Italian blood.
I'm streaming Marcelo Zarvos's score on Apple Music and the movie has plenty of other music, especially Italian.
Vaughn was last blogged for Hacksaw Ridge, Sarandon for another movie about four boomer women: The Fabulous Four (this is better), Shire for Megalopolis (this is better), Cardellini for Green Book, de Matteo for New York, I Love You, Rispoli for The Rum Diary (this is better), Chbosky for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Zarvos for May December.
Vaccaro is best known for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and dozens of credits in TV and film and Bracco for Goodfellas (1990) and 71 episodes of The Sopranos. I wasn't familiar with Manganiello, despite his long resume. And this is Maccie's third screenplay.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics are mostly savoring this one with an average of 83%, while its critics, at 71, are pushing it around their plates. We watched it on Netflix on May 26.
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