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‘Marcella’ Review: A Straightforward Comfort-Food Valentine to an Italian Culinary Queen
Marcella Hazan was an expert rather than an innovator — perhaps aptly, Peter Miller's portrait 'Marcella' sticks to a familiar documentary recipe.
If that description risks selling short Hazan’s vast technical knowhow and professorial research, “Marcella” does not: The film is heavily populated with talking heads from the gastronomy A-list who are duly in thrall to her knowledge and influence. Unsurprisingly, interviews with those who actually knew her — including her husband and writing collaborator Victor, her son Giuliano (an accomplished Italian cookery writer in his own right) and her longtime publisher Bill Schinker — are more detailed and revealing than those with various adoring chefs and gastronomes who grew up on her work. Though she resisted cultural adaptation in her speech and manner, Hazan was ultimately adopted by the States as a culinary national treasure akin to her peer and friend Julia Child, even if, having never been granted her own TV show, she never attained the same degree of celebrity.
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