Big Night, cowritten and codirected by Stanley Tucci (with Joseph Tropiano and Campbell Scott, respectively) is one of those films that has a quiet but lofty reputation. And I am surprised to find that it lives up to it! It is a simple, great film about two Italian immigrant restauranteurs betting all they have on one grand and elaborate dinner.
This is the best I've seen Tony Shaloub. I finally can agree that he is a great actor. Conversely, it's oddly distracting that Marc Anthony has no lines. I expected it to culminate in a defining statement or speech, but it didn't. He was just silent. (Also, so young! Isn't this around the time he was singing, "Tell me, babygirl, 'cause I need to know"?) That whole element is the only flaw in the movie. Give him lines or make his silence less obvious. (Oh, and I’m so proud of myself for identifying Liev Schreiber in a background role!)
The dinner scenes give the delirious vibes of "sticking your teeth in the ass of life and pulling it to you." I really felt the camaraderie and joy and gastronomic delight. Which is the key irony of the film: to the characters, this is an anxious and devastating occasion, but to the audience, it is sheer celebration. It is the manifestation of all they are and want to be. It is vindication after years of struggle. But to the brothers, there are serious financial and self-perception stakes. And so they cannot experience the celebration. They cannot see the manifestation. They cannot feel the vindication.
I found it fascinating that when they are tired and grave, Stanley Tucci and Ian Holm (who knew he had an Italian living in there?) both lose the bulk of their accents. Their Italian-ness is heightened and performed to meet the expectations of their customers and the New World, in which they are selling a culture more than anything. When all is said and done, they can stop performing for each other.
Isabella Rossellini gives real Sophia Loren energy in this film, and it makes me so happy. This is before Allison Janney fell into the performance-of-Allison-Janney (much like the Italians’ performance of their Italian-ness), so she's truly engaging. But the plot is all garnish, a frame in which to set the dinner. The guests there that night receive the priceless gift of a memory of perfection.
Finally: "If I sacrifice my work, it will die! Better that I die!" Something of my core sense of being an artist is revealed in those lines. And, the point is that they did not sacrifice anything for that one night, except perhaps their livelihood. And the latter loss overshadows the former triumph for them, inside the story. Outside of the story, we can glory in their success and even feel that part of us was at that dinner, given that gift of communion and festivity.
Thanks, Tucc!