About My Father – Review
89 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Austen Earl and Sebastian Maniscalco
Directed by Laura Terruso
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
When Sebastian tells his old-school Italian immigrant father Salvo that he is going to propose to his all-American girlfriend, Salvo insists on crashing a weekend with her tony parents.
What happens when a stand-up bit is stretched into a 90-minute movie?
More often than not, nothing good, but that’s what we have here.
A long-recognizable tale of an Italian boy and his working-class Italian father who have differing views of the world, especially as it relates to the son’s desire to marry a woman from a “traditional” American family that comes from “old” money, About My Father isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Let me explain.
I haven’t been a big fan of Robert De Niro’s recent work of the Bad Grampa variety, and I felt going in that this was going to be more of that kind of thing. What we get is closer to his role in original Meet the Parents.
Closer, not close.
It’s a more subtle take on the obnoxious parent, wrapped up in the Sicilian background of star Sebastian Maniscalco’s stories of his father.
Fine.
Unfortunately, the film ultimately feels like what it is: the aforementioned stand-up bit.
That doesn’t make it bad, but it doesn’t make it great, either. It’s all bits of things we’ve heard in various films and television — and, yes, stand-up — before.
Heck, we’re about to get the third entry into the cross-cultural, fish-out-of-water relationship movie when the My Big Fat Greek Wedding sequel hits theaters later this year.
Not particularly groundbreaking material on either family, which surprisingly makes De Niro’s role the most appealing, as he plays it mostly straight, with perhaps the sincerest intentions of any other character in the film. Salvo sincerely wants to do what he feels is best for his son.
So, it’s a decent enough diversion if you don’t want to watch FastX or The Little Mermaid but still want to hit the theater. Chalk this one up as one of those films that I keep saying I want: one that surprises me by NOT being what I expect it to be.
About My Father is in theaters now and stars Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche, Brett Dier, and Kim Cattrall.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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