Bristol Film Festival: Big Night

The obsessive, moody chef. The lengthy scenes of painstaking preparation. The enormous set-piece nosh-up at the end. Yup, the Foodie Flick follows a formula just as rigid as the Heartwarming Romantic Comedy or the Action Adventure With Big Explosions. It’s a treat for those who would have us believe there’s some kind of arcane craft to boiling stuff up and wolfing it down, especially given the smug implication that the European palate is in some way superior to our own, but is there anything here to appeal to those of a more burgers’n’chips disposition?

Brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (co-director Stanley Tucci) Pilaggi are a pair of Italian immigrants struggling to make a go of their New Jersey restaurant business. Customers are few and far between, not least because Primo, the temperamental chef who believes that “to eat good food is to be close to God”, is a strict traditionalist who rails against the handful of philistines who brave his scowling welcome and dare to ask for spaghetti and meatballs. The younger Secondo spends his days fending off bankers threatening foreclosure and would be delighted to jack it all in and go and work for the more popular Italian restaurant over the road, which is run by the slimy Pascal (Ian Holm). Primo, however, accuses their rival of being responsible for no less a crime than “the rape of cuisine”. So when Pascal mysteriously offers to help out by getting his pal, the famed Italian-American singer Louis Prima, to show up for a meal, the brothers invite the press and all the local movers and shakers for the Big Night they hope will revitalise their business.

Where this warm-hearted film really scores is in the complex dynamic between the two brothers, superbly played by Tucci and Shalhoub. Primo is virtually dysfunctional beyond the confines of the kitchen, lacking the courage even to ask the local spinster florist for a date, while Secondo is a worldly philanderer who harbours a sneaking regard for the American Dream, but always defers to his brother in matters culinary. The story itself treads a predictable path, with plenty of authentic shouting and gesticulation over the steaming repast, though the health-conscious may balk at the sight of this hot-headed duo chain-smoking in the kitchen. And it’s certainly informative about Italian cuisine, the centrepiece of the meal appearing to be a huge, coronary-inducing pie (which the production notes inform us is a delicacy called timpano) seemingly filled with the kitchen’s entire contents, including, one fears, several cigarette butts.

This event launches the Bristol Film Festival’s Beyond Popcorn season of movies’n’nosh. Your £60 ticket price gets you a sparkling wine reception, an introduction to the film by festival director Owen Franklin, and a post-screening  three course Italian-themed ‘dining experience’ courtesy of Cherry Picked catering, with wines selected by Averys’ resident experts. Advance tickets are available here.