The price of Nonna’s inheritance reunites the dysfunctional family of The price of family, an Italian comedy that was apparently enough of a Netflix “hit” to warrant a sequel. The first film featured Christian De Sica and Angela Finocchiaro as parents who hatched a foolish and bogus plan to inherit six million dollars so their two adult children could spend more time with them. Spoiler alert: The gist of the twist was that Grandma ends up with the dough, which is where we pick up this even more ridiculous story.
THE PRICE OF NONNA’S INHERITANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Anna (Finocchiaro) has this ex, see, and he’s a greasy guy. His name is Nunzio (Antonino Bruschetta) and you will trust him like you would a hungry snake circling a nest of chicks. He tries to seduce Anna, but I guess overall she’s been happily married for decades to Carlo (De Sica). They’re a bit indifferent as a couple, but either way, Nunzio doesn’t get any better; all he has to offer Anna is a sense of relaxed adventure that no one wants when you’re in middle age. Through some plot twist not worth getting into (something about Nunzio needing actors for a terrible play he’s producing), Nunzio ends up courting Anna’s mother, Giuliana (Fioretta Mari), and “courting “I mean “sexual pleasure.” I’m not sure what Anna finds more disturbing about their relationship: the unholy physical mix or the fact that she knows Nunzio well enough to realize that he’s looking for her mother. It’s six million dollars.
Of course, Anna and Carlo don’t want to see Nunzio scam Giuliana. That would be disturbing. Especially considering they’re in line to inherit that six million, and their adult offspring need—want—to cut back on that money sooner rather than later: Alessandra’s (Dharma Mangia Woods) tea shop is in the red. and Emilio (Claudio Colica) is an unemployed guy who is mired in a totally hilarious attack of depression. When Giuliana announces that she and Nunzio are getting married in Valencia, everyone is angry: the family knows that this is the surest opportunity for Nunzio to make a fortune, and everyone who watches the film realizes that it is about another stinky, rotten, stupid destination wedding. comedy. Haven’t we already seen approximately 300 of these things this year?
Anyway, Anna, Carlo, Alessandra and Emilio decide that the easiest way to thwart the marriage is to kill Nunzio. They have four days in Valencia before the wedding to figure out how to take out the boy. They walk through the woods looking for a poisonous plant that will make it look like a heart attack, they contemplate pushing themselves off a cliff, they wonder how they can fake a fake suicide, all as totally hilarious as Emilio’s. s chronic melancholy. Meanwhile, Anna has to listen to her mother and Nunzio have sex very loudly in the neighboring suite, and every plan they come up with is met with complications ranging from oh shit, there are security cameras everywhere to the best by Nunzio. -friend-overheard-us-making-idiotic-plans-for-emilio-fell-asleep-on-the-poisonous-plant-and-now-he-has-a-large-infected-lump-on-his-shoulder , and other various types of idiocies. So the question is: will they go ahead with this or what?
What movies will it remind you of?: Nonna’s inheritance it is like Ticket to paradise crossed with an ironic Hitchcockian black comedy like The problem with Harry —even if it’s just a little bit as fun.
Performance worth watching: De Sica, Bruschetta and Finocchiaro are veteran actors from dozens of Italian productions who surely know paid work when they see it. I’ll leave it at that.
Memorable dialogue: Anna: “This makes me incredibly sad, you know? That we can’t even come together as a family to commit murder.”
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: I think the central joke here is Anna and company. they’re too stupid and incompetent to accomplish anything, and that would deflate the will-they-or-won’t-they tension of the movie if it bothered to generate any, which it doesn’t. The price of Nonna’s inheritance suffers from a lack of urgency, which doesn’t mesh very well with its lack of viable comedy or the fact that all of these characters are boring morons who don’t inspire our loyalty or sympathy at all.
“I Have a Mother-in-Law” is the extent of the witty dialogue here, and the situations play out in a laconic way that accurately reflects the beach setting but doesn’t work in a comedy that should be a flirt. an agile distraction full of jokes. It has all the makings of a black comedy, except for the sharp teeth this type of humor needs to be effective or memorable. And you know what happens when you make jokes about murdering people and crippling depression that aren’t funny? Well, normally it’s tacky and ill-advised, but this movie shows so little energy or ambition that you can’t even get mad at it.
Our call: The price of watching this movie is your time, which is too valuable to waste on this one. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
