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“Mafia Mamma” began with many of the typical ingredients that make for an entertaining film. It’s a campy comedy set in an exotic location with an appropriate sprinkling of violence. It stars an actress over 50 — a demographic wildly under-represented in this category — who is seeking to regain confidence at a point of inflection in her life. Not to mention the actress in question is Toni Collette, and with her at the helm, how could a film be anything less than entertaining? But director Catherine Hardwicke — best known as the director of the original “Twilight” — takes these ingredients and just throws them against a wall in hopes that something will stick, leaving the audience with a confused lead character, a multitude of intangible plot lines, and monotonous pacing.
The story begins with suburban mom Kristin (Toni Collette) seeing her son off to college. She’s the bread-winner of the family, working a high-level job at a pharmaceutical company while her husband is an aspiring musician. Soon after she discovers his marital infidelity, she receives a call from Italy with news of her estranged paternal grandfather’s death. Upon arrival, she is informed her grandfather was in fact a mafia Don and is calling upon her to take over the “family” business. Hijinks ensue, all of which seek to transform this downtrodden, workaholic mom into a confident, promiscuous mobster.
The film’s first major flaw is the lead character, Kristin, herself. She is introduced to the audience as a meek and overburdened mother — a role that Collette is less than believable in. Once she arrives in Italy, her friend instills in her the mantra of “Eat, Pray, F*ck,” which causes her to throw herself at every brooding Italian man she sees. But the leap between these two personas is jarring and unearned. The Kristin we see at home could never have made this transition, and yet, the audience is expected to believe a plane ride accomplishes it.
As the story progresses, Kristin does achieve her goals of being more confident, but it appears to come at the cost of her intelligence. This successful business woman becomes a bumbling idiot at the first sight of a man with sharp cheekbones. What does remain consistent about her character is her naïvity, which again comes into conflict with this metamorphosis we are to expect of her. Almost all her successes throughout the film come entirely as accidents, a humorous motif at first, but it fails to evolve to create a satisfying conclusion.
What makes this characterization of the leading role all the more disappointing is that it is portrayed by Toni Collette. Collette has starred as the caring single mom in “The Sixth Sense,” as the vapid Gwyneth Paltrow surrogate in “Knives Out,” and the intense and frightening matriarch in “Hereditary.” She clearly has range and the talent to excel at any role. But the inconsistent writing of her character does both herself and the film a massive disservice. She fails to be someone to root for, and her unpredictable actions make her all the more unlikeable.
Beyond the leading role, the overall plotline is confused and meandering. A template for an entertaining fish-out-of-water story is there, but the script refuses to follow it. The romantic plotline has no direction and begins with one of the least believable meet-cutes ever put to film. The role of the villain of the story transfers to different men with different manifestations of sexism every twenty minutes. And worst of all, the film continues for an extra half hour after the conclusion appears to have been reached, which is just one of many other examples where the not-so-funny film is improperly paced.
While it’s easy to root for the representation of an older female lead in a comedy film, sadly it’s hard to do in this case. “Mafia Mamma,” like many films, seems to have been built around a one-line pitch of phrases drawn from a random generator. “Suburban mom plus mafia Don” by itself may garner a chuckle, but without a genuine perspective, it falls short in every category.
—Staff writer Julia Kennish can be reached at julia.kennish@thecrimson.com.
