Review of Nonnas, directed by Stephen Chbosky

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

So I quit and decided to focus on this blog, and fell back more into literary criticism. I also randomly fell into a period of unemployment because of unexpected circumstances, and I took a long and hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take time off. I did end up doing that, traveled for a bit, applied to jobs, and found myself working on the blog now more than ever.

When I was putting out the grind of job applications, which really feels like a full time job in itself, I was finding different ways to unwind. I’ve been watching a ton of movies I typically don’t go for, as I’ve been trying to diversify the kinds of content I’m consuming in my daily life.

Anyways, I wanted to watch Nonnas because I knew it was based on the restaurant in Staten Island. It’s been on my list of places to go for years now, but because it’s in Staten Island I haven’t had the chance to get to it. Staten Island is a bit of a hike form where I usually stay in Brooklyn.

So, for now, I’m watching the movie based on this restaurant. Let’s get into the review!

After the death of his mother, a man opens a restaurant inspired by grandmothers.

This movie opens up with a scene from the past, where the main character, Joe, is just a boy. While he runs through family members at gatherings, he comes into the kitchen, where his own nonna invites him to make one of her specialty dishes with her. He stays in the kitchen with her and his mother, and they all dance together at the dinner table.

In the present day, Joe’s mother has just died. Forty years have passed, and while he knows the vague recipes his grandmother and mother used to cook, he doesn’t know them perfectly. Certain ingredients are missing, a flavor they used to add in seemingly impossible to replicate in a dish.

When he goes to visit his mother’s best friend Roberta in her nursing home, she gives him a letter from his mother, but he refuses to open it while grieving. When Bruno and Stella come to visit him that night, they tell him they hope he does something worthwhile with the inheritance his mother left behind.

It’s while visiting a childhood market in Staten Island that Joe buys the space for a restaurant. He also runs into his old fling Olivia with her neighbor Antonella. Turns out Olivia is still kind of mad he was nasty towards her after inviting her to prom, but she’s moved on and is going to law school.

But first up: Joe now has a restaurant, and he wants to put his family recipes on the menu. He puts out a call on Craigslist for nonnas to staff the place, then gets Roberta on board with the deal. Olivia forces Antonella to join the crew, and she immediately gets into a fight with Roberta about regions in Italy. Next up: Teresa, a former nun, walks in and says she wants to join the staff. Gia is the final piece to the equation, as Joe personally begs her to come and bake at the restaurant.

While brainstorming the menu, Roberta says she wants to put her village’s recipe for an entire sheep’s head on the menu. As the women get into a fight, a kitchen fire starts, and this becomes a catalyst in a bit for a health inspector to refuse to give out the certificate of occupancy. Bruno gets pissed at Joe because of this, as he sold his beloved car so he could finance the restaurant’s repairs for Joe.

However, Olivia ropes the health inspector into clearing them, as she found out he sucks at his job and can easily be reported for some of the things he does. The night of opening, Gia gives all of the women makeovers, and it seems like high energy as they prepare to open the place. No one comes as a thunderstorm starts up—a bit unsurprising considering the weather, but also the locals are weary because Joe’s not from here.

Joe personally makes a plea to a big restaurant critic to come to the restaurant, but he tells him how he is unable to go. Joe has to close the restaurant due to no money coming in, and they invite all their friends and family in order to have one last huzzah before they go out. Joe opens the envelope from his mother afterwards, and discovers she wrote all of the recipes down.

The critic from before sent someone to that last dinner, much to everyone’s shock, and she writes a glowing review of the restaurant. This means that they have another chance; Joe, who previously made things right to Olivia and apologized to her romantically, gets together with her.

The film ends with the credits explaining the real-life restaurant now employs nonnas from around the world and that they’re still in business.

Overall Thoughts

This is quite a cute movie, albeit a bit cliche in so many different ways. I found that the plot overall was solid and sweet, even if the dialogue was a bit stiff at times. Everyone does their job as an actor, so I’m not mad at the acting in general.

This is what I describe as a mass appeal movie, which is fine at the end of the day, but I don’t know if it’s the kind of movie I would come back to in the future. It feels like a Netflix movie you watch once, nod along and say that was cute, and then never come back to it again.

Which is fine, as I said before. Some movies aren’t destined for critic glory and immortality in the world of film history. I’m happy I watched it, but I don’t think it’ll keep real estate in my brain for long.

Go watch it if you’re interested! Movies are meant to be seen, not read about.

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