Little Italy (2018)

Little Italy arrives from 2018 with the confidence of a film that believes it has solved the romantic comedy, and the reviews suggest it solved nothing. Two Toronto pizzerias, two feuding fathers, two grown children who once shared a sandbox and now share a simmering attraction. Donald Petrie directs with the efficiency of a man fulfilling a contract. The oven is hot. The dough is store-bought.

The film does make a gesture toward a broader Toronto. Jessie and Jogi, employees of the rival establishments, circle each other with an unspoken attraction and are eventually paired off in the closing minutes. Two actors of South Asian descent appear in the cast, and the screenplay grants them a subplot. Critics at the time found these characters to be cartoonish, which is a fair reading. Nikki, meanwhile, is a trained chef with a shot at running a restaurant in London. That is a career. The film then trades it for a kiss at an airport, which is a choice.

Elsewhere the ledger is bare. Nobody mentions the climate. Nobody mentions money, despite the entire plot turning on the economics of two competing family businesses. Nobody is body positive, neurodivergent, or revising the historical record. The cast is game, which only makes the material sadder. Danny Aiello, in one of his final roles, deserved a better sendoff than this. The film wants to be a warm plate of pasta and it is not even that. It offers no sermon, no lesson, no scolding. In 2018, that restraint was not virtue. It was just a movie with nothing to say, saying it loudly.