“Nonnas” is not a movie to watch on an empty stomach.
From the eagerly devoured fresh zeppole in the opening scenes to inviting plates of “gravy,” stuffed shells, meatballs and lasagna, this is a film about big food and big family.
Boasting a cast stacked with Oscar talent — including actors from “The Sopranos,” “The Godfather,” “Goodfellas” and “Rocky” — the movie boils down some essential truths of the Italian American experience to deliver a special sauce that should taste familiar to anyone living in New Jersey or New York.
It helps that “Nonnas,” which filmed in New Jersey, is based on a true story crafted by a Jersey screenwriter.
In 2007, years after his grandmother Domenica died, Jody “Joe” Scaravella opened the Staten Island restaurant Enoteca Maria as a tribute. Named for his late mother, the the place didn’t just serve Italian food, it was also staffed by Italian nonnas cooking cuisine from various regions of Italy.
Feeling that grandmothers everywhere are the crucial protectors and connectors of cultural identity in families, he expanded the restaurant’s offerings to Nonnas of the World in 2015. Now, grandmothers from countries across the globe cook their food there.
A similar universality can be found in the warmth of the movie.
Vince Vaughn plays Scaravella in “Nonnas,” premiering Friday (May 9) on Netflix, just in time for Mother’s Day weekend.
His Joe recruits grandmothers known for their cooking to work at Enoteca Maria so he can recreate the love and care of his family kitchen and its enticing, life-affirming flavors.
Joe Manganiello and Vince Vaughn work to open an unconventional restaurant in the Netflix movie. Netflix
Oscar nominees Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro and Talia Shire play the “nonnas,” who are joined in the kitchen by New Jersey’s own Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon.
Emmy winner Drea de Matteo (Adriana La Cerva in “The Sopranos”) and Joe Manganiello (“Magic Mike,” “True Blood”) are among the Italian American cast, which also includes Emmy nominee Linda Cardellini (“Dead to Me,” “Green Book,” “Mad Men”) and Michael Rispoli (Jackie Aprile in “The Sopranos”).
Screenwriter Liz Maccie, who grew up in an Italian American family in New Jersey, read an article about Scaravella’s restaurant and the nonnas. She saw her own family in his story, and pondered a screen adaptation.
“I was like ‘Wow, this is such a brilliant idea. Why has nobody done this before?’” Maccie, 49, tells NJ Advance Media.
Lorraine Bracco and Talia Shire having fun in the Enoteca Maria kitchen as Roberta and Teresa. Their cooking fuels dreams for a second act.Jeong Park | Netflix
She knew she had to pitch Madison Wells, the company that owned the rights to Scaravella’s story.
“To me, that was just my upbringing,” says Maccie (Freeform series “Siren,” Nickelodeon’s “A Loud House Christmas”), who hails from Ocean Grove via West Orange. “It just resonated so much with my family and Jersey, even though it takes place in Staten Island. It’s like that Jersey thing, just that feeling of family and food.”
Cooking through grief, and a Sunday ritual
Scaravella, the owner of the real Enoteca Maria, is an executive producer of “Nonnas.”
“Joe is 1,000% the beating heart of this story, just who he is as a human being,” says Maccie, a fellow producer. ”His heart is honestly the biggest. He’s one of the most (kind), loyal, authentic, genuine people. He didn’t necessarily collaborate with the writing or any of that, but the truth of the story is all him.”
The version of Joe played by Vaughn (“Bad Monkey,” “Wedding Crashers”) also loses his mother, Maria.
While grieving, the MTA worker tries to prepare his mother and grandmother’s Italian specialties. It’s a way for him to cope and feel connected to them.
Reminiscing, he takes the Staten Island Ferry to a market where his family used to buy tomatoes. While there, he sees a restaurant for sale and it all clicks. He realizes he can use the money his mother left him to open his own restaurant, with nonnas being the secret weapon in the kitchen.
“Nonnas” screenwriter Liz Maccie, Enoteca Maria owner Jody “Joe” Scaravella and director Stephen Chbosky at the film’s premiere in New York. Dia Dipasupil | Getty Images
“All of those moves, all of that decision to do this, to take the biggest risk of someone’s life and believe in a group of women that maybe society doesn’t think has ‘purpose’ anymore, to go ‘I’m gonna put everything I have into this dream because you deserve this,’ it’s all him,” Maccie says of Scaravella, 69, who makes a cameo in the film. “He’s infused in every single fiber, in every single word of that script.”
“Nonnas” merges Scaravella’s restaurant origin story with lovingly rendered details from Maccie’s life in Jersey. She says writing the script wasn’t so much a job as a kind of gift, a way to celebrate her family.
The opening scene of the movie sees Joe as a child, salivating over zeppole as he picks up a bakery order for his mother. The scene could be lifted from Maccie’s childhood, infused with the mingled scents of newsprint and pastry.
“That was my dad,” she says. “He’d get The Star-Ledger literally every Sunday and that was followed by going to the bakery, getting the zeppoles. I just love your paper so much because it’s so inherent in the fabric of growing up — it was like the way the paper smelled … my dad would open the sections. And it was all part of that Sunday together, so it was very important to me.”
“Sopranos” star Drea de Matteo as Stella, Joe Manganiello as Bruno and Vince Vaughn as Joe Scaravella in “Nonnas.” Netflix
Her mother worked as a teacher and her father worked as a truck driver.
“That sort of blue collar mentality, life — your values around work and around being together, being there for your neighbor — it all resonated,” she says. “The women in the movie are actually just a combination of all the women in my family — my aunts and my cousins and my mom.”
‘Deep, fierce’ Jersey love
It took a family to make “Nonnas” happen.
Maccie’s husband of 14 years, author, screenwriter and filmmaker Stephen Chbosky, directed the Netflix movie.
Chbosky and Maccie currently divide their time between Greenwich, Connecticut and Ocean Grove.
“You know, we lived in Los Angeles for a long time,” Maccie says. “I was like ‘I have to get back to Jersey. I have to. These are my people. This is where I feel the most comfortable.’”
Maccie says the movie honors her loved ones and their Jersey passion while paying tribute to Scaravella’s work with Enoteca Maria.
“I’ve lost all my family of origin at this point in time,” she says. “I have such a deep, fierce love for Jersey, there’s a pride — I’m like, me and Bruce Springsteen — when I think about Jersey and growing up in Jersey … You’re just sort of there for your neighbor. You just show up. I don’t know what it is about the state, but we have a very specific way of doing things. Steve will say to me ‘You’re talking Jersey again.’ Just sort of the rules, like I gotta pay the check at dinner, not let my friend pay the check.“
“It’s like a full-contact sport,” Chbosky says.
Married filmmakers Chbosky and Maccie. “It just resonated so much with my family and Jersey, even though it takes place in Staten Island,” Maccie says of the movie. Dia Dipasupil | Getty Images
The director, a Pittsburgh native, grew up in nearby Upper St. Clair Township, Pennsylvania. He’s known for helming the films “Dear Evan Hansen” (2021), “Wonder” (2017) and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012), an adaptation of his bestselling 1999 YA novel that won the Independent Spirit Award for best first feature.
Chbosky filmed “Nonnas” in May and June of 2023 in Union, Hudson, Passaic, Essex and Middlesex counties.
The former Spirito’s restaurant in Elizabeth, a longtime purveyor of Italian food that closed in 2020, served as a primary location.
In fact, the filmmakers adored the location so much that they altered the script. The Staten Island restaurant that becomes Enoteca Maria had another name in the story, but they changed it to Spirito’s to honor the restaurant, which had been in operation since 1932.
“We changed it all to Spirito’s to keep the legacy alive,” Chbosky tells NJ Advance Media.
Spirito’s in 2019. The Italian restaurant, an Elizabeth institution since 1932, closed in 2020. “Nonnas” filmed there and filmmakers included the original name of the business in the story.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media
“I filmed there for about three, four weeks. It is a magical building, and you can feel all the meals … you can feel the history in that place.”
An emotional moment in one scene revolves around Al, a character played by Michael Rispoli, who sees the name of the old business preserved on the floor of Joe’s new restaurant.
Chbosky says the cast and crew cared about “treating things with the reverence that they deserve, the way that we treated that restaurant, the way that Liz’s script treated the the older characters.
“When you lead with respect, you can never do wrong.”
Hollywood all-stars give nonnas a second act
A whole lot of veteran actors and A-listers had great respect for the “Nonnas” story.
The marquee names in the film, from Vaughn to Bracco and Sarandon, are evidence enough.
“The entire cast, they fell in love with Liz’s script,” Chbosky says. “They love their individual characters. They all believed in this story, what it was about, the themes of it and the goodness that it stood for … You have a murderers’ row of talent and legendary people, but what I think drew a lot of them to the movie was not the legend of them, it was the people.”
The story seemed to reach each actor at their core.
Susan Sarandon, Brenda Vaccaro, Lorraine Bracco and Talia Shire as the “nonnas” in “Nonnas.”Jeong Park | Netflix
“I remember me and Talia Shire, we were on the phone like an hour or something,” the director says. “(For) 15 minutes, she talked about her mother‘s gnocchi … Lorraine Bracco talked about the food in her family. Susan (Sarandon) talked about her family. So did Brenda (Vaccaro). It was all about this heritage, that’s what they cared about … You just need to nurture it and support it, give it room to breathe, give it time to evolve, and kind of get out of the way of the greatness.”
About that murderers’ row. The nonnas alone include:
Shire, 79, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing Connie Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and again for playing Adrian Pennino in “Rocky” (1976).
Bracco, 70, who earned multiple Emmy nominations for playing Dr. Jennifer Melfi in ”The Sopranos” and an Oscar nomination for playing Karen Hill in “Goodfellas” (1990).
Two-time Oscar nominee Talia Shire as Teresa, a retired nun-turned-Italian chef.Jeong Park | Netflix
Vaccaro, 85, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Once is Not Enough” (1975) and a Golden Globe for “Midnight Cowboy” (1969).
Sarandon, 78, who grew up in Edison, won an Oscar for “Dead Man Walking” (1995) and has been nominated five times in her career, first for “Atlantic City” in 1982.
It’s a treat to watch Bracco as Roberta, whose family is from Sicily, and Vaccaro as Antonella, whose family is from Bologna, scrap in the kitchen. They fight before the nonnas bond over their life stories and become their own chosen family.
Like Joe, they’ve all faced grief and loneliness, and the restaurant becomes their second act.
“Grief doesn’t have a timeline, so why should we?” says Cardellini’s character, Olivia, a law student who was Joe’s prom date in high school.
As everyone throws their energy into Enoteca Maria, their collective effort puts a bounce in their step. The restaurant gives them something to care about and a way to value themselves.
Linda Cardellini as Olivia in “Nonnas.”Jeong Park | Netflix
After Joe puts out a Craigslist ad to catch the attention of grandmothers for the restaurant, Roberta calls it the “list of Craig.”
But not all of the “nonnas” are actual grandmothers.
Handily enough, Shire plays Teresa, a retired nun from the Bronx who keeps the peace between Roberta and Antonella. Sarandon plays Gia, the big-haired baker at Enoteca Maria. The voluptuous salon owner counted Joe’s mother as a client.
“They’re so good at listening to each other, relating to each other,” Chbosky says of the cast. “They all brought this truth. They all brought this authenticity. And so I just sat back a lot and couldn’t believe my lucky stars and watched the sparks fly.”
Chbosky calls a revealing conversation between the nonnas at Gia’s salon one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie.
“Just being there in that salon in Jersey City and watching them just relate to each other for three, four hours just talking, it was really special,” he says.
New Jersey’s own Susan Sarandon as Gia, a salon owner and home baker recruited to work at Enoteca Maria.Jeong Park | Netflix
‘Crushing’ N.J. subs and cutlets
In the movie, Rispoli’s Al becomes a thorn in the side of Vaughn’s Joe.
He’s protective of the old Spirito’s because he was friends with the owner.
However, when “Nonnas” came to Elizabeth in real life, the production received a hearty welcome.
“The neighborhood was wonderful to us,” Chbosky says.
If “Nonnas” is a film that can make your mouth water with all of its close-ups of Italian food — and it is — the movie also gives a nod to the time-honored tradition of comfort eating.
In one scene, Vaughn’s Joe is walking and talking with his contractor buddy Bruno, played by Manganiello, when he stops to turn around. All their talk about planning for the restaurant has him stressed out, so he announces that he’s heading to a shop down the street to “crush a sub.”
Vince Vaughn and Joe Manganiello filming “Nonnas” in Jersey City.Bobby Bank | GC Images
“I could do a cutlet,” Bruno replies, joining him at Sacco’s Meat Market.
The cast and crew of “Nonnas” frequented the Elizabeth business during production.
“I cannot tell you how much that fed the crew,” Chbosky says. “That’s a really great restaurant.”
The “Nonnas” gang also partook of Santillo’s pizza while in Elizabeth.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority tells NJ Advance Media that “Nonnas” spent $19.6 million filming in the state. The production received a $6.8 million tax credit.
Besides Spirito’s in Elizabeth, the movie filmed at locations including Judicke’s Bakery and a private home in Bayonne; LaKoet Salon and private homes in Jersey City; a private home in Newark; a market on Fair Street in Paterson; St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Avenel; the Raritan Valley Bus Service station in Sarandon’s Edison; and Lafayette Lodge No. 27 of Free and Accepted Masons in Rahway.
The cast of “Nonnas” with a transformed Spirito’s. Jeong Park | Netflix
While the movie is set in New York — in Scaravella’s native Brooklyn and Staten Island — Jersey connections abound behind the scenes.
In addition to Maccie’s ties, the movie’s first assistant director, Christopher Surgent (“It Ends with Us,” the “Hunger Games” movies), also a producer, hails from Manasquan.
The film’s production offices were in Kearny. Maccie’s late father, a Newark-born Teamster truck driver, used to work nearby.
“His depot was a mile away,” Chbosky says. “And when I picked him up and I told him ‘Hey, you know your little girl wrote a movie’ and our offices are set up a mile from where he used to drive a truck to and from Montreal for like, 20, 30 years, he got really misty-eyed. It’s really a very special connection to the city and the state.”
Drea de Matteo, Vince Vaughn and Susan Sarandon in 2023 with director Stephen Chbosky on the set of “Nonnas” in Jersey City.Bobby Bank | GC Images
The lasagna — and gravy — of life
“Nonnas” flashes back to when Joe Scaravella was a little boy.
In one sacred moment, his mother invites him to watch his nonna prepare the “gravy” (sauce) for their meal. It’s like she’s invited him to be blessed by the pope.
He stands there in awe, registering a core memory. Later, after his mother dies, he tries to recreate the recipe but doesn’t know the secret ingredients.
Like Joe says in the movie, “food is love.”
Love is the feeling, food is the action.
The camera lingers on meals in the film, setting the tone for conversations between characters, whether the food in question is steak for a big meal, a bowl of soup for a quiet sit-down or zeppole for a peace offering.
As long as Joe has his family’s food, he can hold onto a part of them. When he makes and shares their recipes, it’s an expression of love beyond death. His grief over his mother‘s passing prompts him to send that love out to anyone who walks into Enoteca Maria.
One of Maccie’s treasured family recipes made it into the movie. Jeong Park | Netflix
For Maccie, the miraculous gravy from Joe’s nonna is like her aunt’s showstopping lasagna.
While technically her aunt, she was more like a nonna — “she was so much older than my mom, and I really feel in many ways, she raised me, too,” Maccie says.
“She would make this lasagna … It would take her three days to make it all. And I make it now once a year. I make it on Christmas Eve. It takes me days to make it, and then it takes 10 minutes to eat it. And it’s, like, the best feeling in the world … it’s like a whole ritual. I have a glass of wine … and I make the sauce and watch it. It’s a whole process — I feel my mom and my aunt … I am that child back in that kitchen looking over the counter (at) the way she would make the sauce, put it in these little plastic containers and freeze it all. It brings me back instantly.
“I just feel like I’m passing the legacy on to my children, because they’ll say ‘Oh, our favorite dish in the world is your lasagna.’ And I go ‘There you go, that’s it. And you’re gonna make it for your kids.’ Like, how incredible.”
That lasagna recipe will live on in perpetuity, thanks to “Nonnas.”
Bracco, Vaccaro, Sarandon and Shire put on a master class for director Stephen Chbosky.Jeong Park | Netflix
“When my aunt was passing away, Steve had reached out to her and said ‘Can you please write your recipes down for Liz, at least a few of them?’” Maccie says. “And she was like ‘Oh no, I never write anything down.’ And he begged her and he got her to do it, and he gave it to me as a Christmas gift. And now that she’s gone, her actual literal recipe is in the movie — Vince is actually holding her handwritten recipe. So it makes me cry every single time because it’s so beautiful.”
Chbosky also channeled his formative food memories while making the film.
“I have a very distinct memory of my grandmother … of her kitchen,” he says. “Just being that little boy looking and watching the magic happen. Even though I grew up more Polish-Slovak than Italian, I think that’s what’s so relatable about it. Liz wrote from the Italian American perspective and I have a different upbringing, and yet, I think that nostalgia that we all have for that kitchen and whoever that person was — mom, aunt, nonna, whoever it was — we all have that in common. And that’s why I think the film is resonating the way it is.”
While not a nonna, Chef Jason Forella worked as a culinary consultant and food stylist on the film. He also taught Vince Vaughn how to do certain tricks in the kitchen.
“His food is unbelievably delicious,” Chbosky says. “The only better Italian food that I’ve had, other than Jason’s, is my wife’s lasagna at Christmas Eve and the real Enoteca Maria.”
Vince Vaughn and Drea de Matteo filming in Bayonne.
The $20 bill she couldn’t spend
Maccie and Chbosky believed it was important to get Scaravella’s blessing before making “Nonnas.”
He was happy to give it to them, and approved of the ways in which the script diverges from his story. He considered the fictional details to be in the spirit of his original mission.
But Maccie also received an unexpected blessing from someone else.
Call it serendipity, fate, a message from the other side.
The day that Maccie’s mother died, she picked up a memento for safekeeping.
“For whatever reason, I took a $20 bill out of her purse and I carried it with me for a decade in my purse,” she says.
She never spent it. Not if she ran out of gas, not if she needed to pay for parking.
“It was like she was that 20 dollars,” Maccie says.
Then, when she was in the running to write the “Nonnas” screenplay, she had a thought — she and Chbosky should dine at the real Enoteca Maria.
“Don’t tell anyone I’m up for this job, because I don’t want it to be weird,” she said at the time.
So they went, but didn’t realize it was a cash-only establishment. (These days, Enoteca Maria also accepts Venmo, Chbosky notes.)
When the bill came, they owed $100. It was exactly the amount of cash they had.
“I said to Steve ‘Oh my god, what am I going to do? Like, if I get this job, then I’m the jerk that didn’t tip the waitress, you know?’”
Then Maccie heard her mother‘s voice.
“She was like ‘Take the 20, take my 20. Put it down. It’s time to let it go. I will do this with you.’ And that’s it. I took that money, I put the 20 down on the menu, I took a picture of it, and the next day I got the call that I had gotten the job.”
“Nonnas,“ rated PG, runs 1 hour and 51 minutes and is streaming on Netflix starting Friday, May 9.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter/X, @amykup.bsky.social on Bluesky and @kupamy on Instagram and Threads.