Mama's Treatment PDF Print E-mail
Written by john   
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 00:06
Family Everywhere, is a romantic heart-warming comedy drama of the flavor of “Moon Struck” and “Return to Me”.

Tony Gionelli, is the youngest member of a very close and very large Italian family.  In addition to his two brothers, three sisters and parents, there are numerous cousins, uncles, aunts and relatives of every size and description.

Practically from the day he was born, Tony has been possessed with a burning desire to show the world that love, family and good food are the answers to anything.

He constantly comes up with wild new ideas to expand the family restaurant and pastry business.- ideas that everyone but mama thinks are a bit off the deep end.  Even his fiancée, who loves him dearly, wonders if he will ever settle down enough to raise a family.

After the tragedy of mama’s death early in the film, the family and the business goes into a slump until Tony has this really unusual dream.  

In the dream, we pan past a group of tough looking miners as they head out of a wind-torn, desolate environment and on into a Mama’s small Italian restaurant.  A moment later, Mama emerges from the kitchen with a new desert she created the night before.   “Mama, this is incredible!”, one of the miners exclaims as he puts it into his mouth.  “What do you call it?”   Mama shrug’s.  “It’s Ice Box Cake”.

Waking from the dream in the we hours, Tony heads for the kitchen, intent on making this amazing desert.     

Several hours later, one of his brothers finds him cleaning and wants to know what he’s doing up so early.   Opening the fridge Tony offers him a taste of the ice box cake.   “Oh Marone!, his brother exclaims.  “Where did you get the recipe for this?”   “From Mama”, Tony replies.

The desert is an instant hit.  Everyone loves it, and soon the family is  distributing it to fine restaurants all over New York.   Even though they are all delighted with their new-found success, they get a bit nervous when Tony comes up with a plan to make it for restaurants all over the country.  It’s a bit of too much too fast.

In Tony’s next dream, he finds himself walking into an unbelievably  magnificent family restaurant.  He emerges from the dream with a level of excitement that exceeds anything he ever felt before.

Using this high level of infectious enthusiasm, he convinces the family to put up everything they own on a scheme to create the greatest Italian restaurant the world has ever known.  In his own mind Tony feels that mama herself is supporting this venture from beyond the grave, and thus there is no way it can fail.   However these kinds of ideas are beginning to make the family uneasy.  They seem to conflict with their traditional Catholic up bringing.    

Luckily, Mama’s Galaxy Restaurant soon becomes a smash success.   However, the pressures of this rapid expansion are putting a real strain on the family and Tony’s relationship with his fiancée.  In fact they are beginning to distract them from the things that have always kept them close.    

In his third dream, Tony discovers a production and distribution network that services a chain of Mama’s restaurants that stretch from one side of the galaxy to the other.  This he sees as an unmistakable sign that it is the family’s destiny to spread Mama’s deserts, cooking and family spirit all throughout the world.  The family, however, does not see it that way.  They definitely feel that Tony is losing it, especially when he asks his sister if she has ever considered that possibility that his dreams might actually be real.  

“Remember what Mama said on her death bed”, he exclaims.  “She said that she was going off to see the rest of the family.  Maybe we really do have relatives in other parts of the universe.”

Irritated and upset with the appearancy that the family and his fiancée are no longer supporting his grand vision, he desperately seeks to find a way to prove to them that he is right.  

The way seems to fall into his lap when a major corporation presents him with a scheme to enfranchise the Galaxy restaurant concept and take it world wide.  

Seeing this he convinces himself that this plan is the answer, because it is exactly what he saw in his dream - a network of Mama’s restaurants that had spread all over the universe.  He fails to notice that his original dream of inviting the world to discover that love, family and good food was the answer to everything, has now transformed into a anxiety to insure that these restaurants get built in as many places as possible.   

Having now enticed him into their scheme, the corporate lawyers are easily able to manipulate him into inadvertently putting up the family business and their rights to the galaxy restaurant concept as their part of the deal.

Now, sick with worry that he may have jeopardized the family, Tony  desperate seeks to find a way out of the mess he has gotten himself and the family into.   For a while he withholds the details of what he has done, but soon it all comes out.   His fiancée is furious with him.  Following a heated argument she calls off their engagement.   

Although the family is really concerned that they could lose everything they own, the love wins out and they decide that no matter what happens they are a family and they will survive.  

Tony keeps trying to convince them and himself that it will all turn out OK.    Then, just when it seems like it will. the corporation is served with a court injunction that orders them to temporally close all existing the restaurants, stop construction on the new facilities and halt the national marketing campaign that they were just about to launch.  The order is reportedly based on a claim that Tony stole all of the ideas and slogans from a man who had created them years ago.       

As the court case reaches a climax, even some of the family begin to wonder if Tony got the ideas from his dreams as he said, or he stole them.

Redemption occurs when a mysterious agent arrives in court to prove that the claim against Tony is actually a money-motivated fraud
_____________

Now its two years later and the family is closer than ever.  Corporate American has been divorced from the picture, and although Tony still has his dreams, he pursues them with small, family-oriented people who like the idea of sharing mama’s recipes in a small themed restaurant.

The film concludes a few months later.   Tony shakes hands as he leaves an old Kentucky man who just opened a small version of Mama’s Galaxy restaurant on the outskirts of his small town.   

On his way back to the airport he stops at a local cafe for a bite.   Sitting on a stool next to him is the guy who saved the family in court.   

“Hay, it’s you”, he exclaims.  “I never got a chance to thank you.  I looked all over for you after the trail but you’d disappeared.”

“Yeah, sorry.  I had another job I needed to get to”  “And anyway, you don’t really need to thank me,  I was just doing my job.”

“What job is that?”  

“I handle copyright and trademark disputes.  Normally I don’t get out this far out from the home office, but I received a special request to handle this one personally.”

“Well  I don’t know if you know it, but that day you saved both me and my family.  I really don’t know how I will ever be able to repay you.”

“It’s OK, really.  Like I said, it’s my job.   If you like, you can pay for my meal.  

“Yah sure, it‘s the least I can do.”

“Anyway, it’s been nice seeing you again”, the agent replies.  “Good luck with everything.   Sorry to rush, but my flight is scheduled to leave at any minute.  Thanks for the meal.”

“Ah, you’re most welcome”,  Tony replies is a daze.   
 
As the agent reaches the door on his way out, Tony asks,  “Oh, by the way.  Who was it that asked you to step in?  You said that someone had made a special request.”

“Your Mother“, the agent replies as he walks out the door.  “She is always the final authority on who gets to open a franchise.”

Recovering from his shock, Tony races out of the restaurant into a pitch black, star-studded night. The mysterious stranger is no where to be found.

Quietly now amid, the sound of crickets, Tony stares up into the wonder of the night sky. As his eyes fill with tears as he quietly whispers, “Thanks mom.”

The scene then dissolves to the agent looking through a window at the Earth as it slowly revolves in space. Reversing our point of view, we pull back to reveal a large space ship that begins to head out in the direction of the stars.  Printed on the side of the ship we see, “Mama’s Galaxy Restaurants - fine food and good service, a tradition in seven galaxies for over a million years.”
Last Updated on Wednesday, 05 August 2009 00:09
 
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