James Mangold
Dolly's Restaurant

Dolly's Restaurant is the debut feature film by James Mangold, who would soon become one of the leading directors in Hollywood, making films like Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, and more recently, A Complete Unknown. This debut work is still an independent film, where the director already shows flashes of remarkable talent, starting from the condition of a single individual to reach a much broader metaphor of life.

Dolly's Restaurant is the story of a man, Victor Modino: a still young, obese, extremely introverted and taciturn man, bordering on muteness; above all, a man completely isolated from the world that spins and flows around him. His days are dominated by a dull and monotonous routine and his work as a cook in his parents' ramshackle roadhouse, or rather, his mother Dolly’s, because his father is no longer around. The poster of Farrah Fawcett that greets him every time he wakes up, the little dog that prefers his mother to him, car rides with the radio on a psychology program, solitary card games before the place closes: this is how Victor's days go by, whose only company, besides Dolly, are Dolores, a grumpy and vulgar waitress, and Leo, a drunkard who wastes his time at the counter from morning till night. He has one talent, Victor, that is cooking; every day, in the car, he leaves the Culinary Institute of America on his right, where he could train to become a great chef, but his mother, who deeply cares for him but still treats him like a child, sees it all as just a waste of money and so nothing comes of it.

Things start to change, however, when Dolly (we're at the beginning of the film) hires Callie, a very attractive girl who has just dropped out of school. Victor is immediately attracted to her, but doesn't know how to approach her; it's quickly clear that Callie, who can see beyond physical appearance, also has feelings for him, but theirs is an impossible love, due to Dolly’s overwhelming presence on one side and a rough, authoritarian, and possessive boyfriend on the other, a relationship with Callie that almost doesn't go beyond sexual satisfaction. Inspired by Callie, Victor wants to start losing weight and changing his life, but one day his mother has a heart attack and everything threatens to collapse...

James Mangold made a mark already with his debut, which won the Special Jury Prize for directing at Sundance and was presented in competition at Cannes for the Caméra d'Or. The casting is exceptional: for the four main roles, they couldn't have chosen more suitable actors, starting with Pruitt Taylor Vince as the protagonist, with a great Debbie Harry (Dolores) and a convincing Liv Tyler (Callie). The soundtrack is by Thurston Moore, who I personally find annoying, but I felt it was necessary to mention it.

An unfiltered, hyper-realistic film that speaks to the heart, showing the squalor and meanness of the American province, showing those dreams, like the Culinary Institute, so close yet so far for all of us; a film that left me with a cloak of sensitive sadness, an artistic and reflective sadness, with an Italian title that doesn’t do justice to the original, Heavy: heavy, like Victor, heavy like his condition, where, however, perhaps, a glimmer of hope can still be seen...

Until next time.