Writers: Amanda Sthers, J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
It is hard to understand what motivated the writing and commissioning of Amanda Sthers, J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon’s Mafia Mamma, a frustratingly cliched comedy filled with painful stereotypes of Italian mafia families and a country that may have been the cradle of the Renaissance but is reduced to a projected vision of Hollywood pasta and gelato fantasies. With a ludicrous plot, thin and unbelievable characterisation and few real jokes, it’s hard to believe films with as little purpose as Mafia Mamma still get made.
Working in a marketing job where no one respects her and finding her husband with another woman, Kristin is unexpectedly called to Italy to hear the reading of a relative’s will. Hoping for a fling with an Italian man and plenty of pasta, Kristin is shocked to discover she has actually inherited a new role as the head of a local crime family which soon becomes an offer she can’t refuse.
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the film has few redeeming features, soulless and unengaging, Mafia Mamma feels like a film from 20-years ago, struggling to find a consistent tone or decide what to do with its leading character who is shuttled between nicey American awkwardness and extreme acts of violence. Although this is a female-led narrative, Kristin is a down-at-heel, emotional mess, smothering her teenage son and baking muffins for her first crime family conference. At every point, the character only accidentally gets herself out of a series of messes, yet with no change across the 100-minute running time, the writers want the audience to believe she has the capacity to assume the role bequeathed to her.
And this is another dud choice for Toni Collette following last year’s offensive sex pest ‘comedy’ The Inheritance. Here she plays Kristin, a not dissimilar character who is walked over by everyone in her life and when it all comes crumbling down immediately switches into a different gear. It is not a very credible trajectory nor is the continually ditzy but good-hearted character that Collette goes for but the actor holds the film together with little to work with.
As with 2015’s Spectre, Monica Bellucci is wasted and barely present as the only other female character of any note, a private secretary to the deceased family member, Bianca, whose only purpose is to talk Kristin into leading the family, give her a makeover so she can bed a rival and teach her how to be sexier. But Bellucci’s character has no grounding of her own. Nor do any of the Italian characters, a mix of stereotypes and plot devices with as little comic value as they do substance.
There was possibly a silly enough idea in here – an American woman with culture shock navigating a very different life for which she appears entirely unsuited – but Hardwick’s movie struggles to sustain itself across its running time and becomes overly reliant on slapstick violence and tired tropes. Mafia Mamma is not worth getting a babysitter for.
Mafia Mamma is streaming on Prime Video from 17th November.
