‘Mafia Mamma’ review: Toni Collette stars as an American mom and marketing exec who discovers her own power after she ascends to the top of an Italian crime family.
Toni Collette in a scene from"Mafia Mamma."
“Eat, Pray, Love” is so over — ladies, we’ve officially entered the “Threaten, Extort, Kill” era. This unusual new ethos of empowerment is the guiding theory behind Catherine Hardwicke’s crime comedy/feminist manifesto “Mafia Mamma,” starring Toni Collette as Kristin, a harried American mom and marketing exec who discovers her own power after she ascends to the top of an Italian crime family.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir “Eat, Pray, Love” and its subsequent film adaptation starring Julia Roberts looms large in “Mafia Mamma,” as Kristin and her best friend Jenny fantasize about escaping to a land of gelato, pasta and Italian hunks after Kristin walks in on her dirtbag man-child husband Paul mid-coitus with the school guidance counselor.
Collette’s performance of a ditzy, flirty, overwhelmed, horny and generally clueless American woman is so perfectly embodied as to enter the realm of parody, but the script, by Amanda Sthers, J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon, never condescends to its heroine, nor does it require her to change. Sure, she gets a glamorous Mafia makeover courtesy of her right-hand woman, Bianca , but Kristin succeeds because of her incongruously feminine qualities, not in spite of them.
This high-concept romp demands an over-the-top and facile narrative, and some of the bits are a bit hackneyed, but “Mafia Mamma” is much more wacky, funny and violent than the too-tame trailers would have you believe.
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