Little Italy Synopsis: A young couple must navigate a blossoming romance, amidst a war between their families’ competing pizza restaurants.
Nikki (Emma Roberts) is an up-and-coming chef currently studying overseas under the judgmental eye of Corrine, a Gordon Ramsey-esque teacher played by Jane Seymour doing her best Gordon Ramsey-esque imitation. Nikki is offered the chance to cook at Corrine’s new restaurant, but that also means returning home to Canada to get her work visa in order.
Nikki, who has been away from home for five years, dreads it. Her family lives in “Little Italy” in Toronto, where her parents run a pizza shop. Why is Nikki so apprehensive about returning home? Well, her family has been embroiled in a rivalry with another family and their pizza shop since Nikki was a young girl.
The two families used to run a pizza shop together and were extremely close until some words were exchanged at a pizza contest, and they’ve been on the outs ever since. Nikki has also been in love with their son, Leo (Hayden Christensen), for years, but the two don’t seem to agree about their feelings for each other. So, while their families bicker, Leo and Nikki spend time getting reacquainted.
Let me say, Little Italy has a somewhat decent cast. Andrea Martin and Danny Aiello steal the show here as Nikki’s grandmother and Leo’s grandfather. They are in love and trying to hide their relationship from their fighting sons. They’re so adorable and charming that they almost make this movie worth watching. Almost.
I honestly don’t know what else to say about this movie. Christensen has never really learned to emote as an actor. He’s a bit bland here, and his I’m Italian! accent was distracting. His chemistry with Roberts is fine, but there is nothing to keep me emotionally invested in their story. I’m not entirely sure what that was, to be honest.
There’s no major conflict here, but for their fathers fighting over something they refuse to talk about until the movie’s end (the big reveal made me sigh in disappointment). Nikki may go back to England to start her culinary career, but I think that was just to fit in a last-minute airport chase and declaration of love, as it’s one of the best-known rom-com tropes.
It’s clear Nikki and Leo had some history before she returned home to Canada at the beginning of the movie, but we never really learn what that was. When they argue, it’s mostly the two of them pointing out each other’s flaws, but we’re never shown those flaws during any character development, so it fell flat.
This movie came out in 2018, but it felt insanely dated. The characters are essentially one-dimensional Italian stereotypes, and the portrayal of the Indian employees made me cringe every time they were on the screen. Add in some jokes about being gay and an officer feeling up Leo in an awkwardly unfunny scene, and you may start to understand why it took me nearly 2 1/2 hours to finish this movie with a runtime of 102 minutes.
It just wasn’t funny, and this movie had no emotional stakes. It felt like it had zero plot, so they made it up as they went.
I really loved Donald Petrie’s Mystic Pizza, but he completely missed the mark with Little Italy. Charmless and unfunny, it felt like a failed sitcom pilot for NBC in the 1990s. If I’m honest with myself, if Little Italy had been released during the She’s All That and Never Been Kissed years, where it belonged, maybe I would have liked it. Maybe, but probably not.
Watched: 11/08/2019
Little Italy Notable Song: There’s Nothing Holding Me Back by Shawn Mendes
