If you haven’t Noannas, the movie, now available on Netflix, please do. What follows here gives away some of the key points of the Movie, read on at your own peril. This essay could have been called, “The Wisdom and Lessons Learned from Noannas”.
First off, some of the great Italian actors and actresses of the last half-century are in this movie. The wife of one of the Sopranos (Drea de Matteo). She’s was the one who snitched on the family and the mob killed her. Rocky’s girlfriend (“Hey Adrian!”, Talia Shire. She plays a nun in Noannas.) The psychiatrist in the sopranos (Lorraine Bracco is one of the noannas. And I have a bone to pick – in the movie she’s in an old folks home, in a wheel chair and she tells Vince Vaugh she can’t cook for him because she’s too old. She say she’s 73. And here’s my bone to pick – I was 74 when I hear her utter those words. I’m 75 now. My thought? “Get the heck out of that chair! 73 isn’t old. Come on.) And lastly Susan Sarandon. She’s the pastry chef and the bombshell. If you don’t recognize their names you will the faces.
The movie is based on real life. It’s about a man who wants to honor his mother by opening an Italian restaurant in Staten Island and have Italian grandmother cook. His Best friend, a construction foreman, says you don’t know the first thing about opening a restaurant. to which he replies, “What’s there to know? You have menus, you have grandmas cook good food.” It’s super simple idea. But, as the movie illustrates: he had to learn a lot of things along the way. For instance, how do you deal with a crooked building inspector? How do you pay your bills? What is an ansul system? (Fire suppression, I just looked it up.)
It reminds me a lot of the movie The Founder which is about how Ray Kroc created McDonald’s as a nationwide chain. He ran into similar problems as Vince Vaughn did in Noannas and got bailed out at the last minute when someone appeard with the answer.
But there’s something else in the movie. Something more than overcoming hurtles to bring a project to fruition. The movie reveals simple truths about life. The most poignant was when the shy noanna, who had been a nun, (played by Rockie’s girlfriend) revealed she had left the Nunnery because she was in love with a woman.
She asked the question of her fellow noannas: how can you be who you are knowing it’s a sin?
That brings up one of those questions that has plagued societies throughout history. Somehow, a civilization develops based on shared norms. However, not all these norms are shared by everyone. And what happens to those who don’t share those values? And what happens if the person believes, or is, intrinsically that the society is opposed to? What happens to them? How does the society act or react to those people?
This movie also makes me think about The Great Gatsby. When I first read that book I was in seventh grade. I wanted to skip the boring stuff get to the action. For Instance I asked myself – Why the big scene in the apartment in New York? I didn’t understand. It was boring. It got in the way of what was happening. I didn’t realize that the action was only a magnification of those problems. “The rich are different than us.” is as true today as then.
120 punds and counting
I got one for you too. Netflix also but a “limited series.” Ripley. Even Al got into even though he only saw the last 4 episodes of 8.
I will watch Noannas. Always looking for something. Afterall, I am 81. I didn’t do this when I was 76. I was traveling. Lumbar and cervical vertebrae have given out. Not wheelchair yet. Physical Therapy is my answer.