An early Stanley Tucci movie makes my worries very briefly slightly fleetingly diminish about a possible third world war. Only for a moment.
Whenever I feel low, I either go to trusty stand up comedy, or foodie films, for temporary relief.
And I’m feeling pretty low.
I’m sure you are too.
War can kinda do that. And this isn’t the first one in near memory, it just happens to be the closest to home. This makes it no more tragic, only equally so. War is always bad. No two ways about it.
Chef (2014) I’ve seen. The Trip (2010) too. And Julie from Julie and Julia (2009) annoys me (and I think other people too, because someone cut out only the Meryl Streep scenes to stitch together a new, better, shorter version which you can see here). Oh, and of course all the food in the Ghibli movies is to die for. But, has also been ravished by my eye-mouths.
So, with little left, I run my classic keyword search “feel-good foodie films”, then add “indie”, because I’m a nob. I finally find, and turn on Big Night, a 1996 foodie film starring a young (bountifully-haired) Tucci, alongside Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini, Allison Janney and Tony Shalhoub. It’s not the most interesting film, but it does have that je ne sais quoi magic that brings you to a better place. It’s joyful. It’s food. It’s bad Italian accents. The holy triad.
The film’s set in the Big Edible Apple where two unnecessarily loud immigrant Italian brothers own a struggling restaurant. Their names? Primo and Secondo. Oohee. Can you see that? My first smile just cracked. It’s a boy!
But what made me laugh out loud — which, mind you, it’d been a while for a movie to do that — was the conversation about the pointlessness of the observation by Secondo that “it rains outside, because it never rains inside”. Don’t get it? Yeah, you need to watch it. It’s the perfect moment. Awkward pauses. Confusion. Well, that’s my perfect moment.
Aside from Tucci’s amazing get-up (those sunglasses ammiright?), the triple-spiced fiery Italian passion, and the beautiful food, this movie isn’t going to move mountains, it’s actually not even that engaging. But it will maybe, just maybe, move your uncurled, down-turned, limp mouth muscles — up-curled and headed north — for a brief, fleeting smile.
And if not, well, watch Jimmy Carr be hilariously rude about how he makes his own vegetables. With a hammer.
Happy international political relations every body!
