Meet your new comfort clock “Nonnas”

Stephen Chbosky's Nonnas is a warm, nutritious hug of a film. As with any good Italian food, it is best to enjoy it, surrounded by good company and definitely not on an empty stomach.

Inspired by the real story of Joe Scaravella and his restaurant in Staten Island, Enoteca Maria, Nonnas concentrates on Joe (Vince Vaughn), who is lost after the loss of his mother and grandmother in the middle of the emptiness. With his grief, he plays a gambling and uses his mother's life insurance allowance to open a restaurant that is completely occupied by large -scale Italian grandmothers and each with its own regional recipes, memories and wisdom with its own regional recipes.

Although I am not Italian, the essence of these women is immediately familiar. Think of the type of grandmother who can silence a family feud with a look, heal a heartache with ragù or enchant everyone with a baked good. Think home.

Vaughn delivers a grounded performance as a man who designs himself quietly and has rebuilt. “I don't know what tomorrow should look like,” he says early. This feeling of being lost in a real, familiar, quiet, desperate way will not be left.

However, the four grandmothers, played by the screen giants Susan Sarandon, Brenda Vaccaro, Lorraine Bracco and Talia Shire, who are the heart and soul of this film while they steal the show. They are complex, faulty, fiery women who collapse, laugh, mourn and mourn. To watch them navigate in kitchen rivalries and share their personal stories is one of the great joys of Nonnas, many of which are available. A heart to heart between them? Pure gold. I think I got over the breath all the time. It is the type of scene that she shows how lucky we are to still have these legends on the screen and to get the room to glow. You may rule for a long time.

Elsewhere, Linda Cardellini brings just the right balance between warmth and wit, when Olivia, Joe's former celebrity date, became a law student. Her character is a widow that takes care of Vaccaros Antonella (and vice versa). Since Joe is unable to read his mother's letter, she cannot move her wedding ring from her ring finger. While it is obvious that she is there as a romantic interest in Vaughn, her chemistry becomes an emotional grounding force for both. She is someone who understands what it means to start from the front later in life if you think you are determined by time and not to be affected and try again. Your line “Grief. It has no timeline, so why should we?” Feels like the defining slogan of the film.

And then of course there is the food. It is visually tasty, almost excruciating. Do not watch this as hungry as I do. Every sizzling pan and bubbling sauce is filmed with such tenderness that the kitchen becomes practically its own character. It becomes a place where mourning is stirred into sauce when the characters begin again in a common understanding of what it means to love and lose. It is impossible not to feel moved when you watch hands, hold the generations that now shape something for yourself.

Thematic, Nonnas Explores well -known terrain in grief, family, aging and from the front, but it does this with unusual sincerity. As they feel the characters' emotions, never try to shock them or manipulate their tears. Instead, they invite them to sit at the table, to listen to these women and to remember those who love them, whether they are present or passed on.

It is a Netflix original, so of course the story unfolds for predictable things. However, you will welcome these known beats because Nonnas knows what it is doing. It doesn't try to reinvent comfort food. It is a welcome homage to the women who fed us, held us, shaped us and kept us independent of the circumstances.

You will want to hug the women afterwards in their lives, because here is for them. If you are lucky, you may tell you the story behind the sauce. If you are very lucky, you may find out from the ingredients.

Premiere date: May 9, 2025

Director: Stephen Chbosky

Executive Producers: Jay Peterson, Todd Lubin, Leah Gonzalez, Stacy Calabrese, Amanda Morgan Palmer, Scott Budnick, Ameet Shuckla, Jody Scaravella, Pam Kirsch, Christopher Slager, Dan Guando, Vince Vaughn

Production: Fifth season, 1 community, Madison Wells, Matador content

Pour: Vince Vaughn, Linda Cardellini, Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo.

Summary: After the loss of his mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with a group of local grandmothers as chefs.