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Ah, Scott Baio. He was Chachi. He was Charles in Charge. Girls all over the country had pictures of him (which they’d cut out of Teen Beat and all those other teen magazines) hanging in their rooms. And then he just…disappeared.
When I saw his face on the cover of A Wedding for Bella (also known as The Bread, My Sweet), I couldn’t resist picking it up. When I read the back and saw it compared to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that sealed the deal.
Baio stars as Dominic, an Italian pastry chef who runs his own bakery in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. During the day, he leaves the bakery in the hands of his brothers, Pino (Shuler Hensley) and Eddie (Billy Mott), and he goes to work at a huge corporation in the city, where he’s just been promoted to Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisition—a job that pretty much involves firing a lot of people.
Dominic’s heart, however, isn’t in his big corporate job. It’s back at the bakery, with his brothers and with Bella (Rosemary Prinz) and Massimo (John Seitz), the old Italian couple living upstairs.
Dominic’s life changes when Bella becomes ill. He rushes her to the hospital, where he’s told that she has cancer. It’s inoperable, and she only has six months to live. Bella has been like a second mother to Dominic, and he wants to do everything he can to make the last months of her life as happy as possible. But she makes him promise not to tell anyone, saying she doesn’t want to die in a hospital. So Dominic secretly goes in search of Bella’s daughter, Lucca (Kristin Minter), who left home years before to join the Peace Corps, so he can bring her home to see her mother again.
Bella’s always dreamed of seeing her daughter married to a wonderful man. So when Lucca arrives, Dominic decides to propose to her—so they can plan the wedding that Bella’s always dreamed of.
A Wedding for Bella wasn’t what I expected. I expected a somewhat outrageous cultural comedy, centered around a wedding—like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But Bella isn’t a comedy. Yes, there are times when you’ll laugh, but it’s definitely not a comedy. It’s a sometimes-heavy drama that’s guaranteed to bring a tear or two to your eye.
Bella isn’t without its flaws—which is to be expected for a super-low-budget indie (it was made for about one-eighth of still-indie Greek Wedding’s budget). The story is a bit predictable—and there are a number of elements that should have been left on the editing room floor. The transitions are sometimes choppy, and the acting isn’t always the best. (I was especially distracted by Massimo, who often sounded like an angry two-year-old: “Me no like!”) Viewers who are unfamiliar with independent film may be taken aback by the lack of big-budget Hollywood polish.
What the film lacks in budget and Hollywood glamour, though, it makes up for in heart. Bella is a wonderful character—and the rest of the characters’ devotion to her will cause even the toughest viewer to get just a little bit choked up. Despite its flaws, A Wedding for Bella is worth seeing—if only for its warmth and charm.
Or, if you happen to be one of those girls who used to cut pictures of Scott Baio out of teen magazines, it’s worth seeing just for old times’ sake.
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