Uncle Nino movie review & film summary (2005)
The film goes into national release with an interesting marketing story behind it. Independently financed and made in Chicago, it was rejected by major distributors and festivals. It opened in one theater in Grand Rapids, Mich., played 55 weeks, grossed $170,000, and has ecstatic user comments on the Internet Movie Database.
It also has an IMDB "user rating" of 9.1, which is 0.1 higher than "The Godfather." This rating is interesting because 79.4 percent of everyone voting for it gave it a perfect "10" rating, and because the breakdown of voters into males, females, age groups, U.S. and non-U.S. reveals that the approval rating in each and every group is uncannily close to 9 percent (every female under 18 scored it 10, and the hardest to please were males 30-34, at 7.4). Does this suggest to you that someone has been force-feeding the database?
Never mind. Let's regard the movie. It stars Joe Mantegna and Anne Archer as Robert and Marie Micelli, a Glenview couple who have moved into an expensive new home and are working hard to keep up. Their son Bobby (Trevor Morgan) is a 14-year-old who belongs to a band that can't find a place to practice, and their 12-year-old daughter Gina (Gina Mantegna) spends a lot of time at her best friend's house, because nobody is home at her house. She wants a dog, but Robert doesn't want the mess and bother.
Enter Uncle Nino (Pierrino Mascarino), one of those lovable movie ethnic types who speaks no English, except for each and every word he requires in a specific situation. He is making a belated visit to America to visit the grave of his late brother. A quick study, he perceives that the Micelli family needs more quality time, more music, wine in bottles, and a dog. In attempting to remedy these needs, he blunders into various episodes of mistaken intentions, mistaken identities and mistaken mistakes. He is simultaneously saintly and comic, and filled with a wisdom at which American suburbanites can only shake their heads with envy.
