Monica Bellucci ranks among the world’s great beauties, an icon of Italian pulchritude, an international symbol of glamour.
But “Mafia Mamma”?!
An intentionally outrageous farce mocking Mafioso tropes – and especially the “Godfather” saga – Bellucci plays Bianca, a key boss in the most powerful Mafia family in Calabria.
The boss of bosses has died and his will demands that his American granddaughter Kristen (Toni Collette) replace him. Kristen is a frazzled housewife. With her son off to college, there’s her philandering husband and, at work, a 𝓈ℯ𝓍ist boss. Needless to say, she knows zip about Italy where she’s flown in for the funeral, much less about running her newly met mob family.
“I read the script and laughed out loud — the film was so funny! I was so happy to be part of this because I’m a huge fan of Toni Collette. I knew her, of course, as an actress. But I didn’t know this amazing energy she has in real life,” Bellucci, 58 and in a black Valentino jacket, began in a Zoom interview. “We built a beautiful relationship together. It was fun, really bouncing off of each other. Improvising.
“This film is a comedy in the world of the Mafia and of course, there are many references to ‘The Godfather’ and so many twists. I grew up with Mafia movies like so many of my generation – ‘Godfather, ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Once Upon a Time in America.’ This film is just the continuity of an incredible tradition of Italian movies.
“Yesterday, I saw the film with an audience for the first time — and there was this incredible reaction. I realized that the film is a pulp movie as well, you know? Really Catherine Hardwicke did amazing work as the director. Amazing, because the film is difficult. There are many actors, many scenes, and she was never scared to try something. She just believed in a really great script.
“You know she did ‘Twilight, ‘Thirteen’ and now, the mob movie. So she’s really special. With her femininity she brings elegance in the middle of the violence and allows us to play the way we did.
“What I like about the women in the film,” she added, “they have duality. Kristen, she’s very, very nice. Very sweet. But she can become very, very dangerous. And in Bianca, there is mystery, a Mediterranean warmth. But she knows how to deal with violence because that is where she comes from. You know, even beyond comedy, there is a beautiful meaning because these women, they fight to protect themselves in a male-dominated society.”
“Mafia Mamma” opens tomorrow
