Why write a review for a movie that's over twenty years old? Primarily because of the number of reviews that don't seem to appreciate what the movie really is. Even many of the positive reviews unwittingly consign it to the purgatory of "food movie," warning potential viewers not to watch it on an empty stomach, but this quiet, deceptively simple film contains the layers, complexity, and hidden surprises of a timpano, the grand, stuffed main course of the meal at the center of the picture.
Layer One: Food. Even though it is more than a food movie, let's not rush past that part too quickly. The central event of the story is a meal prepared for celebrity guest Louis Prima, whose anticipated presence promises to save the struggling restaurant of the brothers we know simply as Primo (Tony Shaloub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci). Primo takes his food seriously and so should we. Every shot of it is beautiful and fills the viewer with longing and desperation at not being able to smell and taste every enticing course, even when another bite doesn't seem possible! Layer Two: Fraternity. The relationship between Primo and Secondo is anything but easy, and as is often the case with those closest to us, the thing each brother values in the other is the very thing that drives him crazy. Primo's uncompromising commitment to his art is, at least in aspiring businessman Secondo's view, the reason why they are struggling, in comparison to nearby competitor Pascal (Ian Holm) whose circus of Italian culinary cliches is full every night. Tucci's ability to capture that quiet desperation of a man torn between family and success rings true with anyone who's felt the competing pressure to succeed and remain true to oneself. Layer Three: Creativity. How does one whose only goal is to make something beautiful succeed in this world? What if no one else appreciates that beauty? What if the compromises one must make to produce that art risk the soul of the artist? There aren't a lot of interviews about this movie wandering around the internet, but I suspect that for Tucci, who co-wrote and directed the picture with Campbell Scott, this was a driving passion behind the movie in the first place. Primo's commitment sets up much of the movie's comedy-from railing against a patron who wants a side of spaghetti with her risotto to mocking his brother's suggestion of removing said risotto from the menu altogether. But here too is the bitterness of the picture. The older brother is free to pursue his art, generally unencumbered by concerns about how well it sells, but we see the cost of such purity in his brother's humiliating visit to their lender and the frantic, last-ditch attempt to save the restaurant via the titular event. Layer Four: American Culture. On one level Primo's is the quest of every artist, but the promise of the American dream drives-at some points, literally-the whole movie. We never see the two brothers leaving behind the old world (although it is present in the movie). We never see them getting off the boat or hear the discussions that motivated the trip in the first place, although we get the distinct impression that this was Secondo's project from the beginning. But the promise of America that the film suggests seems to be one where the only path to success is to become the version of you that the culture is prepared to accept-the stereotype, the cliche, who serves meatballs with all spaghetti and doesn't blink twice placing a plate of risotto alongside.
Without divulging too much, there is another meal after the main one. But what's most striking about it is its simplicity-both in content and in form. It was on my second viewing that I got a sense of the thought behind the film and the injustice that it doesn't have a bigger following, but maybe that's just the cost of art in America.
N.B. There was another reason for the timing of this review: the impending release of Tucci's The Last Portrait. If it's anything close to the quality of Big Night, we should all be buying a ticket.
Layer One: Food. Even though it is more than a food movie, let's not rush past that part too quickly. The central event of the story is a meal prepared for celebrity guest Louis Prima, whose anticipated presence promises to save the struggling restaurant of the brothers we know simply as Primo (Tony Shaloub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci). Primo takes his food seriously and so should we. Every shot of it is beautiful and fills the viewer with longing and desperation at not being able to smell and taste every enticing course, even when another bite doesn't seem possible! Layer Two: Fraternity. The relationship between Primo and Secondo is anything but easy, and as is often the case with those closest to us, the thing each brother values in the other is the very thing that drives him crazy. Primo's uncompromising commitment to his art is, at least in aspiring businessman Secondo's view, the reason why they are struggling, in comparison to nearby competitor Pascal (Ian Holm) whose circus of Italian culinary cliches is full every night. Tucci's ability to capture that quiet desperation of a man torn between family and success rings true with anyone who's felt the competing pressure to succeed and remain true to oneself. Layer Three: Creativity. How does one whose only goal is to make something beautiful succeed in this world? What if no one else appreciates that beauty? What if the compromises one must make to produce that art risk the soul of the artist? There aren't a lot of interviews about this movie wandering around the internet, but I suspect that for Tucci, who co-wrote and directed the picture with Campbell Scott, this was a driving passion behind the movie in the first place. Primo's commitment sets up much of the movie's comedy-from railing against a patron who wants a side of spaghetti with her risotto to mocking his brother's suggestion of removing said risotto from the menu altogether. But here too is the bitterness of the picture. The older brother is free to pursue his art, generally unencumbered by concerns about how well it sells, but we see the cost of such purity in his brother's humiliating visit to their lender and the frantic, last-ditch attempt to save the restaurant via the titular event. Layer Four: American Culture. On one level Primo's is the quest of every artist, but the promise of the American dream drives-at some points, literally-the whole movie. We never see the two brothers leaving behind the old world (although it is present in the movie). We never see them getting off the boat or hear the discussions that motivated the trip in the first place, although we get the distinct impression that this was Secondo's project from the beginning. But the promise of America that the film suggests seems to be one where the only path to success is to become the version of you that the culture is prepared to accept-the stereotype, the cliche, who serves meatballs with all spaghetti and doesn't blink twice placing a plate of risotto alongside.
Without divulging too much, there is another meal after the main one. But what's most striking about it is its simplicity-both in content and in form. It was on my second viewing that I got a sense of the thought behind the film and the injustice that it doesn't have a bigger following, but maybe that's just the cost of art in America.
N.B. There was another reason for the timing of this review: the impending release of Tucci's The Last Portrait. If it's anything close to the quality of Big Night, we should all be buying a ticket.