LITTLE ITALY
US, 2018, 102 minutes, Colour.
Emma Roberts, Hayden Christensen, Danny Aiello, Andrea Martin, Adam Ferrara, Gary Basaraba, Alyssa Milano, Linda Kash, Vas Saranga, Amrit Kaur, Jane Seymour, Andrew Phung, Ava Preston, Nikky Capello.
Directed by Donald Petrie.
Little Italy is a Romcom, appealing to the Romcom audience, those not into it probably wanted to give it a pass.
In fact, it is everything that might have been expected from a romantic comedy set in little Italy. It has also been described as a food film, dismissed by experts in cuisine. It really is a pizza film – and at times you can almost smell and taste pizza .
So, there are two families, the little girl in one, Nikki, delighting to be in the company of the other family’s little boy, Leo. They are inseparable. However, there is a competition, a clash between the two fathers, enmities for the next 20 years, two separate pizza parlours, side-by-side, Leo’s family’s business flourishing, Nikki’s family not.
Then, Nikki, grown-up, goes to London to be educated in cooking and restaurant management, under the eye of Jane Seymour. But, after some years, she has to return home and prepare menus for a new restaurant.
A lot of the film is then about what happens when she gets home, now a glamorous young woman, encountering Leo who has faithfully stayed with the family even though he would have liked to have had his own restaurant, their initial encounter, playful, wary, drinking, some innuendo…
A range of character actors play the parents, two husbands and wives and their interactions, but a focus also on the grandparent generation, with Danny Aiello in one of his final films as Leo’s grandfather, and Andrea Martin (so extrovertedly Greek in the Big Fat Greek Wedding films) as Nikki’s grandmother. Secret dating, proposal, dinner for all, the announcement, and the fostering of the feud.
Nikki is emotionally bewildered, in love with Leo but refusing to acknowledge it. He is in love with her. However, to solve the feud, it is decided that the families enter the competition for that year, the younger generation because the fathers have been banished from the competition. And, whoever loses, will move out.
Lots of food and excitement with the competition, the cooking, the judging, Leo winning but realising that Nikki had manipulated the sauces with the intention of her losing and leaving.
Final drama at the airport, everybody there, interrupting all the procedures, Italian loud, love, resolutions – and reconciliations.
More or less what we would expect.
