Nonnas
Nonnas is the kind of film that gets made once a year if you are lucky, and usually goes unnoticed because it does not fit the culture war narratives that drive algorithm engagement. It is not woke. It is not a reaction against woke.…
Full analysis below
Not a woke trap. Nonnas is one of the most overtly traditional films Netflix has released. A story about grief, Italian immigrant family heritage, cooking as love, and elderly women being given dignity and purpose. The film was designed as Mother's Day viewing and it delivers exactly what it promises. Conservative audiences should put this near the top of their streaming queue.
Our Verdict on Nonnas
Nonnas is the kind of film that gets made once a year if you are lucky, and usually goes unnoticed because it does not fit the culture war narratives that drive algorithm engagement. It is not woke. It is not a reaction against woke. It is simply good, and what it is good about is worth paying attention to.
The story: Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) is an MTA mechanic who loses his mother and cannot process the grief. What he can do is cook her recipes, but he cannot get her Sunday gravy right. He takes her life insurance money, finds a shuttered restaurant space on Staten Island, and decides to open a restaurant staffed by real nonnas. Not professional chefs. Grandmothers. Women whose cooking lives in their hands and their memories and is not written down anywhere.
This is based on a real place that actually exists. Enoteca Maria is on Staten Island. The grandmothers are real. The premise is not Hollywood romanticism. It is a true story about a man who honored his mother by creating a space where other mothers could be honored.
Vaughn is excellent here in a way that his comedy career has not always demanded of him. Joe's grief is present and specific rather than generic. His relationship with the nonnas, especially his early fumbling attempts to be their boss before accepting that he needs to be their student, generates the film's best scenes. Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, and Brenda Vaccaro are each given real character moments and each lands them. This is a film that genuinely cares about its older female characters, not as symbols or as progressive tokens, but as specific human beings with specific histories and specific ways of making ragu.
The film has a conventional romantic subplot (Linda Cardellini as Joe's high school crush) that lands with less force than the central story. This is a minor flaw. The film also runs 114 minutes, which is about 15 minutes longer than the story requires. These are craft issues, not values issues.
Conservative audiences should understand what they are getting: a film about grief, generational knowledge, the preservation of culinary tradition, the dignity of elderly women, the Italian-American working class community of Staten Island, and the specific love that mothers and grandmothers encode in the food they make. If that sounds like something you want to spend two hours with, Nonnas will not disappoint you.
It hit number one on Netflix on Mother's Day weekend 2025. That audience knew what it was looking for and found it.
Woke Tropes & Content Analysis
Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier
🔴 Woke Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absent/Diminished Father Figure | 2 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 1.4 |
| TOTAL WOKE | 1.4 | |||
🟢 Traditional Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honoring the Dead Through Living Tradition | 5 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 6.3 |
| Generational Wisdom as Sacred Inheritance | 5 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 6.3 |
| Italian-American Working Class Family Culture | 4 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 1.4 |
| Matriarchal Wisdom (Non-Ideological) | 3 | 0.7 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Grief as Love's Persistence | 2 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| TOTAL TRADITIONAL | 16.8 | |||
Score Margin: +16 TRAD
Director: Stephen Chbosky
CENTER. Chbosky is best known for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which has progressive elements around teenage identity and trauma. But his directorial approach is character-driven and humanist rather than ideological. Nonnas represents a clear pivot toward mainstream family-affirming content. His work here shows a filmmaker whose priority is emotional authenticity rather than political messaging.Stephen Chbosky wrote the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) and adapted and directed the film version (2012). He also directed Wonder (2017), a mainstream family drama about a boy with facial differences that was widely embraced across political lines. Nonnas continues the Wonder trajectory: a generous, warm film about human dignity that prioritizes emotional truth over ideology. Chbosky is a consistent craftsman whose work varies in political temperature but never in emotional sincerity.
Writer: Liz Maccie
Liz Maccie adapted the screenplay from the real story of Joe Scaravella and his Staten Island restaurant Enoteca Maria. Maccie researched the actual grandmothers who cook at the restaurant and worked to give each of them a distinct voice and history. The script's core argument, that elderly women's culinary knowledge is a living cultural inheritance that deserves preservation and respect, is both progressive in its female-centering and deeply traditional in its reverence for generational wisdom.
Content Breakdown
Adult Viewer Insight
Nonnas operates on a values level that cuts across political lines without trying to. The film is about what gets lost when the people who carry knowledge in their bodies, not in books, not on the internet, but in their hands and their memory, are no longer with us. Every conservative who has ever tried to recreate a grandmother's recipe and realized they cannot because she never wrote it down will recognize this film's central grief immediately. That grief is not ideological. It is human. The film's implicit argument is that elderly women's domestic expertise is not trivial or backwards. It is civilization. The cooking knowledge the nonnas carry is cultural inheritance as real and as fragile as any other form. Joe Scaravella understood this and built an institution to preserve it. The film honors that project honestly. There is no political agenda here. The closest the film gets to a progressive lean is centering elderly women as the film's true protagonists rather than supporting characters in Joe's story. That centering is warranted by the actual story being told. It is not imposed.
Parental Guidance
Rated TV-MA on Netflix (equivalent to R). Parental guidance suggested for younger viewers. Violence: None. Language: Some profanity. The Staten Island Italian-American characters speak the way Staten Island Italian-Americans speak. Nothing severe. Sexual Content: Mild. Joe and Olivia's romantic subplot includes some affectionate scenes without explicit content. Thematic Content: The film deals with grief over the loss of a mother, which may be emotionally heavy for children who have experienced similar losses. Age Recommendation: 12 and up with parents. Adults and teenagers should have no concerns. Young children will find the film slow. Discussion Points: What recipes or cooking knowledge have you inherited from grandparents? What would be lost if no one preserved them? Why does Joe have to learn from the nonnas rather than boss them around?
Is Nonnas Safe for Kids?
Parents should know that Nonnas contains mild language with occasional uses of common profanities, though nothing excessive or graphic. Sexual content is minimal, consisting of brief references and perhaps mild innuendo appropriate to adult characters, with no nudity or explicit scenes. Violence is absent or extremely minimal, reflecting the film's comedy-drama nature without graphic content or gore. The film depicts alcohol consumption in social contexts typical of family gatherings, presented without glorification or moral judgment. Drug use is not a notable element. Regarding spiritual content, the film likely includes positive or neutral references to Catholic or Italian cultural traditions, given the title and subject matter involving family, though these are presented as cultural rather than preachy elements. The film's traditional score and family-focused comedy-drama genre suggest wholesome entertainment centered on intergenerational relationships and cultural heritage. The absence of woke messaging indicates straightforward storytelling without contemporary ideological overtones in either direction. Nonnas is appropriate for ages 13 and up. Younger teens may appreciate the humor and family themes, while the mild language and some adult-oriented situations warrant parental discretion for children under 13. The film appears designed primarily for adult audiences and older teens who can appreciate its humor and character-driven storytelling about family dynamics.
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