Big Night

After having looked over my reviews on IMDb, I noticed that only one of them was enthusiastic. That should be rectified, since I consider myself a big fan of cinema, and I choose as my second enthusiastic recommendation Big Night. This is one of those films that doesn't have to show off. It's a slice of life sort of thing going on here, with an assortment of people with strengths and faults, but who all value life's simple pleasures, like good food. It's a story about the underdogs , and their hopes and dreams and struggles -- some within reach, some not. It's got a good cast too. They all make it look easy, but they have a charming script and careful direction. I think Billy Wilder would have approved. At turns funny and touching, and the last scene -- several minutes without a word of dialogue -- is pure gold.

The story seems simple at first sight: an Italian restaurant is going under in debt. 2 Italian brothers excell at cooking, but are disastrous at selling their delicous food to the customers, who arent interested in culinary exotics. The further we stroll into the story however, the more we realise as viewers that this movie is more about the love and hate for family bonds. And cooking for your family is equal to showing your love.

There is a natural laid back rythm to this story, that is very mesmirizing. Some of the best moments are those in which nothing is said, when we only see 2 brothers eating and cooking together, in complete silence, symbolising their unspoken love for each other. That is a definite sign of great craftmanship, because there are very few directors who master this kind of story telling without using words.

The end credits mention special thanks to director Robert Altman. That credit goes to show that this movie is a bit more then just an amusing portrait about Italian family bonds. "Big Night" is a director's gem!

Little seems to know that our beloved screen-chameleon Stanley Tucci has a low-profile director career, with five features under his belt to this day, which all started with BIG NIGHT, a food-porn interspersed with fraternal clashes, co-directed with his high-school friend Campbell Scott.

Tucci is a formidable triple-threat in the picture, apart from taking credit in the script department, he plays the central character Secondo ("second" in Italian), an Italian immigrant in New Jersey in the 1950s, he opens a restaurant called Paradise with his perfectionist elder brother Primo (for sure, it means "first" in Italian, played by Shalhoub), who is a chief par excellence but cannot deign himself to accommodate the eclectic American taste, for him, it is the "rape" of the love of his life. Therefore, the business is gloomy, as the manager, Secondo is equipped with street smart and intent to sink his teeth into making good in the promise land. The titular "big night" is game- changer vouchsafed by their benevolent competitor Pascal (Holm), who runs an eponymous restaurant nearby with success (first you cook what the customers want, and after that you can teach them what to eat!). Financially strapped, the brothers go for broke and organize a lavish banquet to entertain the popular singer Louis Prima as their last resort, but, there is a catch, is Pascal's deed really altruistic, does he have an axe to grind?

Although both Tucci and Shalhoub's strained American accents cannot escape a born-and-raised Italian ear (not this reviewer anyhow), the performances are barnstorming: Tucci turns head in his no-holds-barred incarnation of someone who is at once aspirant and frustrated, self-deceiving and delectably sympathetic (albeit his bed-hopping habit and an eye-rolling treatment of being caught red-handed near the end); Shalhoub, on the other hand, constrains himself to evince a more ambivalent timber of Primo, whose presence is often waffling between being stubbornly selfish (claiming he is unable to make a sacrifice, but the truth is, he just doesn't want to do something degrading his bloated ego, it is never about Italian gastronomy, he is too afraid to be a fish out of water) and so ineptly reticent (with his capacity of English lexicon wavering implausibly in between different scenes, and a bonhomous Allison Janney is criminally underutilized as his possible love interest); but the true unsung hero in the movie is Ian Holm, who gives a fantastically Janus-faced impersonation peppered with either effervescence or stolidness. Unfortunately, the film fails to pass the Bechdel test, yet between Minnie Driver's lackadaisical girlfriend and Isabella Rossellini's sultry lover, Secondo's two-timing subplot cannot outstrip the consanguineous squabble and affinity.

By and large, BIG NIGHT is an effusive ethnographic study of Italians in America garnished with a profusion of music, gusto and humor, also gets to the bottom of the soi-disant American Dream with a bitter-sweet introspection, although with its closing long-take brazening out the life-goes- on truism, the ending seems to make a virtue out of necessity, why not leave us something more concrete to chew over after the rolling credits, or are the filmmakers simply running out of ideas to consummate a less self-aware culmination? The jury is out there.

Big Night is a peaceful joy to watch because its themes and the overall feeling of the film is so normal. The characters, so beautifully rich, are realistic and so are their problems. The characters are mainly wonderfully, infectiously bombastic Italians, and entire scenes are sometimes constructed of the process of making Italian food from scratch. The subtlety and unaffronting reality of these qualities are so endearing to me. In fact, the scene that leaves an imprint on me more than any of the others, despite how fun it is to see the actors have a blast playing fiery, thick-mustachioed men with heavy Italian accents, is a scene that hardly has a connection with any of the others. An Italian ballad is playing over the soundtrack through the previous scene and continues into this scene, wherein Marc Anthony, playing a low-level restaurant bus boy, a small, quiet, incidental character, begins dancing with himself as he mops the floor of the restaurant. When other characters enter, the music, coming from nowhere but the film's soundtrack itself, cuts off and he continues mopping the floor as if the dancing never happened. It's so touching for that scene to have been slipped in, giving a person who is only against the background of everyone's lives a dreamy, sensitive personality that he keeps to himself.

The focal point of the film is the chemistry between the characters of Stanley Tucci, playing a hard-working, pleading, frustrated restaurant owner, whose head carries only logic and a goal for success, and Tony Shalhoub, his brother, whose aggressive passion is for the food he cooks and the mystery and subtext within it, yet his interaction with people is painfully shy. Their clashes of pride, their battles with each other's completely different perspectives, and yet their sharing of the same dream are what drives the story.

A lot of the film's humor comes from the hilarity of Ian Holm. Ian Holm, a stiff-limbed Englishman, plays here a loud, very animated, hot-tempered Italian entrepreneur with a seamless and wonderfully entertaining delivery of an Italian accent and Italian movements. It's my favorite performance of his because I had never before imagined that he would play a role like this.

Big Night is not a masterpiece nor do I think it was even meant to be one, but what it is is subtle and interesting for purely human reasons. It's soundtrack is also a fantastic celebration of Italian music.

I just need to mention that this is my friend's review that I wanted, with his permission, to share with you. I believe his meticulous view has discovered a veiled aspect which most of us have missed.

MR

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`Big Night' is a movie not so much about food and Italian cuisine but rather about cultural encounter and identity crises that most immigrants face upon their arrival in the new homeland.

The story cleverly unfolds the multi-personalities of an immigrant's character in a metaphorical representation. A character that is overwhelmed in a fierce inner struggle, constantly striving to reach a desired compromised. The big night is a milestone in an eventful and often chaotic journey. It's a moment for close encounter with reality.

The movie is about two brothers, Italian immigrants, trying to run ` Paradise' a gourmet restaurant. Primo is an uncompromising chef, who wishes to educate Americans to appreciate `The Real Italian Food'. Despite the obvious failure of their business, he stubbornly defies his customers' conception of Italian food. He simply cannot stand it when, a customer wants her risotto, painstakingly prepared seafood, with spaghetti and meatballs, and he calls her a `Philistine'.

While the brothers are battling for survival, Pascal, another Italian immigrant one generation older, runs a busy restaurant that fulfills the American conception of Italian food. Pascal is the kind of immigrant who has a clear mission statement. He is here to do business.

Secondo, the younger brother, who is in charge of management and accounting tries to convince his brother to give in and accept the business realities. He is in favor of changes to save the `Paradise'.

Primo the gifted chef, Secondo the manager who wants to run his business with the Rules of the Game, and finally Christian that mysteriously and quietly is there for the brothers in times of need, all are three aspects of the same person. A person lost and exhausted in the `Paradise'. Torn apart between Pascal who runs an enormously successful Italian restaurant across the street and Alberto the isolated barber who preserved his old social values.

The Movie begins with a scene that shows Christian in deep thought looking at the sea. We will see him often around the brothers throughout the movie. He hardly says anything. However, his presence has a mysterious significance yet unrevealed. Perhaps, an aspect of the immigrants' character that is more fundamental than the ones affected by cultural differences.

Primo represents that side of the immigrant that's terrified by the might of the new culture and the impending changes that eventually unravel. He is reserved, strongly opinionated and scared that he may lose it all in this journey and end up `eaten up' by the new culture.

Secondo shows us the willingness of the immigrant for discovery, understanding and adaptation to the new social values. He looks up to Pascal for advice and, as Gabriella (Pascal's mistress) puts it, sees him as a `lighthouse' in a raging sea.

The night of the feast is an important milestone in this evolutionary process. It is an opportunity for Primo to show us what he possesses and how precious those possessions are. At the same time, it's a moment to face the reality that `Paradise' is in trouble and without a compromise it won't make it.

The film ends with Secondo, Christian and Primo eating three scrambled eggs the morning after the big night. Scrambled eggs and bread, a basic food in both cultures, implying a retreat to a common ground, for further evaluation and perhaps some adjustments. The movie, quite appropriately, doesn't reveal the direction that our immigrants will take. However, it beautifully displays the quiet coexistence of three personalities in a more persuasive journey!

I wonder if `the Big Night' is an adaptation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. If so could you identify `Id', ` Ego' and `superego'?

SR