A Pizza to the Eye

Everybody Wants to Be Italian Directed by Jason Todd Ipson Run time: 103 min.

Of the many questions raised by Everybody Wants To Be Italian, perhaps the most nagging one is this: If a movie is written and directed by a man married to an Italian woman, is the use of jaw-dropping stereotypes acceptable? In the film’s opening shopping sequence, shop owners—including Penny Marshall in a cameo appearance—all know fishmonger Jake (Jay Jablonski) and most still attempt to cheat him, while the rest of the film is filled with macho Italian men objectifying women while wearing barely buttoned shirts to display their gold chains. And never before has a romantic comedy’s characters been so insistently transfixed by one another’s ethnicity. Being Italian translates to being better at romance than anyone else—even most of the film’s characters are at least second-generation American.

Maybe if Everybody Wants To Be Italian were even intermittently funny, the stereotypes wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, what we get is the story of a man so pathologically obsessed with his ex-girlfriend that he still shows up at her door every year on their anniversary in a new suit, clutching a ring—this despite the fact that they’ve been apart for eight years, and she’s now married with children.

Rooting for this man-child who refuses to take even the slightest step toward making his life a happier one is almost impossible, especially given the way he treats Marisa (Cerina Vincent), his best shot at getting a real girlfriend. Pressured by his vicariously horny co-workers to go on a date with her, he spends most of their evening together discussing his girlfriend—never bothering to mention that his girlfriend broke up with him almost a decade before. Even more irritating than his casual cruelty is that after a few weeks and a new boyfriend, Marisa decides that she and Jake should be friends; so the two embark on the sorts of spontaneous, witty outings that always spell love in romantic comedies.

Of course, something must happen to ruin their burgeoning relationship, and what Ipson has chosen makes the entire movie even more annoying than it was. In addition to Marisa and Jake’s mutual conviction that the other is Italian—and instead of turning Marisa’s boyfriend into a viable threat—Jake’s ex, Isabella (Marisa Petroro), suddenly reappears on the scene, ready to reconcile. Why women fall all over themselves to be with a selfish, idiotic guy like Jake remains resolutely unexplained, which certainly doesn’t make his effortless knack at charming them by being a jerk any more convincing.

Nor does Jablonski’s performance smooth over the film’s major plot holes. He has a rocking body, sure, but nowhere near the looks or charm that perpetual hunk Dan Cortese displays in his five minutes of screen time as Marisa’s boyfriend Michael. Instead, the audience is supposed to take on faith that this stunted man (who shows up for a sleepover at Marisa’s with glow-in-the-dark stars for her bedroom ceiling) attracts women with his naiveté and innocence. His immaturity may cause women to swoon, but its magic is lost on me. Maybe Jake really would have been better off as an Italian.