Parents' Guide to

Toscana

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Angry chef finds peace in Italy; language.

Movie NR 2022 93 minutes
Toscana

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • Toscana Movie: Scene # 1
  • Toscana Movie: Scene # 2
  • Toscana Movie: Scene # 3

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What's the Story?

High-strung genius chef Theo (Anders Matthesen) has a short fuse with his sous chefs, with his wealthy backer, with his longtime manager, and with himself. He needs to be dislodged from his angry, solitary rut, and the death of his estranged father, a chef in Tuscany, is the tool that pries him loose. In TOSCANA, he grudgingly travels to the Tuscan acreage, restaurant, and inn his father left him to quickly dispose of the rundown property. Instead, he falls for Sophia (Cristiana Dell'Anna), the childhood friend he's forgotten his dad had taken in. The restaurant is doing poorly, and he agrees to cater her wedding there, partly to impress her and partly to show an interested buyer the property's potential as a restaurant-hotel complex. Sophia seems smitten, too, yet she still reluctantly says "I do" to her unsuspecting groom. Will Theo go back to Denmark and never look back?

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

As another addition to the growing genre of movies about ill-tempered chefs, Toscana offers something lyrical and eloquent in what is left unsaid. It isn't clear if all the unfilled blank spaces left in this movie are artful and deliberate or just happenstance. And that unanswered question rises during the movie's duller moments. Perhaps it's genius to allow us to fill in so many unknowns ourselves, or perhaps no one working on the film could come up with the words or actions that could make everything more explicit but also equally moving.

How does the story end? We really don't know. Why does the chef abandon his fancy big-city Danish restaurant for overgrown acreage in Tuscany? We don't know that for certain, either. What we do know is that Theo seems happier, more open, more encouraging to his protégés, and generally kinder and more comfortable in his own skin. That can't be a bad thing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how difficult it can be to grow past childhood trauma. What does the movie suggest made Theo so angry at his father?

  • How does this compare to other movies about ill-tempered chefs?

  • What does the movie say about creativity?

Movie Details

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