Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott co-directed this celebration of family, food, and top-notch indie-film acting. After the boisterous banquet that makes up the bulk of the film, the morning-after comedown is somber, dramatic, ambivalent, poignant, and marvelous. Facing the imminent closure of the gourmet Italian restaurant that was their dream, immigrant brothers Tucci and Tony Shalhoub share one last meal with their waiter (Marc Anthony). In a nearly silent final scene, shot as one unbroken, five-minute take, Tucci expertly cooks a frittata in the restaurant kitchen, divides it three ways, and sits down to eat. Soon his brother joins him, the waiter slips out, and the brothers are left to dine alone together, each with his arm around the other. It’s perhaps the ultimate testament to the value of a good breakfast—as comfort food, physical nourishment, quality family time, and Proustian emblem, a reminder of countless identical breakfasts past and a hopeful harbinger of countless identical breakfasts yet to come.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerP7FRMWa8]