“It’s the wanting.” – Uncle Sally
Let me start by saying
The Sopranos is my favorite television show. I love the writing, the
acting, the atmosphere, the magically authentic way a family drama
blends with the dark comedy of mafia life.
When I heard they
were making a Sopranos movie, I sent up prayers to the gods of
television and big screen that they wouldn’t ruin the show in any way. I
can say that my prayers were answered. I enjoyed The Many Saints of
Newark, but it took a little bit of work to get there.
First
of all, I had to separate the fact from fiction: I saw some of the
junket surrounding the movie. People were describing it as the making of
Tony Soprano, the man, through his childhood and teenage formative
years. The first time I watched the movie, I was disappointed because
that is not what the movie is about. After I finished the movie for the
second time, I decided that this wasn’t about the making of Tony, The
Saints was about Dickie and Harold. Tony took backseat to those
storylines.
The good:
They filled in the backstory of Uncle Junior and why he was so bitter, jealous and single.
Vera Farmiga played the hell out of Livia Soprano.
The actor who played Janice, Alexandra Intrator, was also fantastic and really captured her mannerisms.
The bad:
I
wanted more out of the voiceover narrative by Chrissie. He could have
explained Pussy’s name. He could have provided a verbal bridge between
Dickie’s behavior and Tony’s adult behavior.
Who’s the boss of Newark? I don’t know who ran the show.
Will
someone please explain the blind baseball team? Was that a wishful
thinking sequence? That was a perfect opportunity for a Chrissie
narrative to do some ‘splaining.
Although I liked how it
looked, why did the beach scene all of a sudden turn into an arthouse
short? The only thing that came to mind was that they were trying to
link it to Tony’s boardwalk dreams.
When
I thought about this movie as the making of Tony, I wasn’t very happy
with the Harold storyline. Maybe it was a vehicle to add dimension to
Tony’s racist reaction to Meadow dating Noah in season 3? But how would
young Tony have learned about Harold's affair with Dickie’s goomar? It did work as
a vehicle to explain why Tony and Carmela live in the suburbs.
But
once I figured this movie was about Dickie and Harold, then Harold came
to represent much of what scared and infuriated Dickie, Johnny Soprano,
and the other guys. They probably didn’t think too highly of Black
people before the riots, but after the riots and when their neighborhood
started being infiltrated, they were affected by the change and they
showed it with hate and animosity.
That being said, I think the filmmakers made some serious mistakes with the Black characters in Many Saints.
First
of all, I don’t believe for one second that they would have let a Black
guy into the back room of Satriale’s. No one said anything when Harold
put his arm around Dickie. Harold shows up when the guys were out with
their goomars and sits down with them… in public. How did Harold get
away with shooting up an Army recruiter’s office when only a few scenes
later, a Black taxi driver gets dragged out of his cab and beaten?
And
then the worst color storyline faux pas was when both a Black woman and a
Black man going to bed without covering their heads. In the riot scenes,
you see some well-defined waves on Harold’s head. A Black man would
want to maintain those waves and he would have done so by wearing a wave
cap to bed. His wife also did not set or wrap her hair, which was
unheard of if you didn’t have an afro. FYI: You should still wrap your
afro.
The making of Tony: Now that we got to
meet and get to know Uncle Dickie, it is clear that adult Tony was
influenced more by his Uncle Dickie than his father. The film doesn’t
exhibit to the audience how Tony picked up his uncle’s traits and how he
learned about his uncle’s experiences and how they affected him. In
fact, Dickie makes efforts to try to keep young Tony at arm’s length
from “this thing of ours.”
Like I said overall it was an
enjoyable movie, but it isn’t one I’d watch over and over like I do with
the show and my other movie favorites. I give it three stars ***.
I streamed this move from HBO Max.
Drama, Mafia, Period piece: 60s and 70s
I agree with all your points regarding how it was not shown how Tony was influenced by his uncle. The film was the perfect chance to explain his behavior as an adult and it didn't take it. They should not have advertised this the way they did because an hour into the movie I was still wondering about Tony and his upbringing.
ReplyDelete