It Made This Bad Man Laugh, Cry, Cringe

I’ve never been to Grand Rapids, but I think of it as a place full of good, solid people who suffer through tough winters and turbulent waters. Studios think of it the same way, sometimes test-marketing films there. So when director Bob Shallcross’ independent movie, “Uncle Nino,” was rejected by all the studios, he contacted Grand Rapids’ 18-screen Celebration! Cinema, where, he said, he knew “a friend of a friend.” I’m guessing palming a 20 gets you pretty far in that part of Michigan.

On Friday, more than a year and $170,000 in tickets later at Celebration!, “Nino” ended the longest test-market of a film in U.S. history. A distribution company, hoping this is the next “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” will send it off to 11 major cities in February, some of which, sadly, don’t have theaters with exclamation points in their names.

Starring Joe Mantegna and Anne Archer, “Uncle Nino” is the heartwarming tale of an elderly Italian man who visits from the old country and teaches a disconnected modern American family heartwarming things. Now I have long feared that, deep down, I’m not a good person. This may stem from the fact that I don’t always completely focus when my friends tell me their problems, or because I don’t give as much to charity as I should, or because people are constantly telling me that I’m not a good person.

But now I was about to find out for sure. If I didn’t like “Uncle Nino,” I was definitely a jaded urban jerk. Nervous, I called Billie Sue Berends, the head of the Nino’s Nieces and Nephews, which, Berends stressed, is not a fan club.

“That makes us sound nuts,” she said. “It’s a support group.”

It was already hard for me not to be a bad person. When I told my fears to Berends, who has seen the film more than 100 times with the organized groups she brings, she asked three questions to determine my suitability for “Uncle Nino.”

(1) Do you love America?

(2) Were you raised in a wonderfully healthful family situation?

(3) Do you smoke?

I told Berends that I most certainly did love America. I mean, I wouldn’t fight or die for it, and I wouldn’t stick up for it in an argument at an English pub, but I certainly think we do have some excellent restaurants. I asked her what she possibly meant by the second question. And, no, I don’t smoke.

The not-smoking was good enough for Berends. I needed to see the film and have a good, long talk with her afterward.

I considered going to Grand Rapids, but I found out it’s nowhere near New York or Los Angeles. So instead I had the film company send me a videotape. I opened my windows, made some hot chocolate and turned the faucet on in the background to get what I figured was a Grand Rapids kind of feel.

“Uncle Nino” is not a subtle film. There aren’t a lot of things you don’t see coming. As Uncle Nino learns English by hanging out with the rebellious teenage son, you wonder if he’ll start using the hilariously inappropriate word “sucks” or “awesome”? (Answer: both!) And “Nino” does, in fact, deliver a surprising amount of non sequiturs about the dangers of smoking. Including the surprising, but historically accurate, “Abraham Lincoln never smoke. Smoking no good.”

It’s an earnest, well-paced film that hasn’t embraced the annoying self-importance of “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding.” But I couldn’t get past the fact that none of the sudden, drastic character changes make sense. I was definitely a bad person.

Then Uncle Nino, a violin player, joins the teenage son and his friends in a battle of the bands. And as the audience members slowly realize how much they like the song, I feel my eyes tear up. And I hate myself. Because it’s too easy to like “Uncle Nino.” You like the movie not because it’s good, but because it reaffirms everything you already believe. Smoking is bad, America is good and, as Dexy’s Midnight Runners briefly showed, the violin belongs in rock ‘n’ roll. It’s the same reason Democrats read newspaper columns by Democrats and Republicans by Republicans: to hear someone articulate what they feel.

I was starting to feel better about my bad self. The next morning, to my horror, Berends called to ask what I thought of the movie. I gritted my teeth and told her I thought it was lame. And she told me that was fine.

She said, “You’re afraid that if you tell me the truth about yourself and I don’t agree, that I won’t like you anymore?”

Grand Rapids really does have good people.