NYTimes
Love Is All There Is (1996)
Capulets and Montagues As Rival Bronx Caterers
Just when you thought romance was dead and comedy was buried in the adjacent crypt, along comes ''Love Is All There Is.''
This buoyant, wickedly funny comedy drags Shakespeare's tragic ''Romeo and Juliet'' out of medieval Verona, plants it kicking and screaming on 20th-century City Island in the Bronx and turns it on its head in a boisterous celebration of young love and the possibilities of parental coexistence.
Concocting this mischief, Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor make merry with Italian-American life, language, decor, food, clothes, jewelry, sex, superstition and just about anything else they turn their welcome talents to.
In this version of the old story, the feuding families are not the Capulets and the Montagues but the Cappamezzas (the film's translation: half a head) and the Malacicis (translation: bad beans).
The Cappamezzas and the Malacicis are rival City Island caterers. The Cappamezzas are of Sicilian descent, serving heavy red sauces, wedding cakes decorated with thickly iced Elvis and Marilyn heads and a clientele whose idea of a great wedding includes shrouding the dance floor in a romantic veil of rainbow-hued smoke. The newly arrived Malacicis are pretentious Florentines given to pale sauces, light cuisine and elegance.
For Mike and Sadie Cappamezza (Mr. Bologna and Lainie Kazan), who are already heavily in debt, the opening of the rival business (Paul Sorvino and Barbara Carrera, proprietors) isn't bad enough. Sadie is worrying about whether Mike is having an affair, which prompts her to consult the wacky local psychic, Mona (Ms. Taylor), who prescribes anatomically revealing love candles and foresees trouble on another front.
It seems that the Cappamezzas' teen-age son, Rosario (Nathaniel Marston), is going to fall in love with his Juliet in the local Fourth of July church production of ''Romeo and Juliet.'' Since the Juliet in question seems to have subsisted since birth on a diet of cannoli, the prospect is not heartening. But when this Juliet collapses the balcony during a rehearsal, who should be brought in as the emergency replacement but the Malacici's dewily beautiful daughter, Gina (Angelina Jolie).
It's love at first sight, and all hell to pay for the rest of the film.
The delight is in the details, and Mr. Bologna and Ms. Taylor revel in everything from the production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' to Sadie Cappamezza's makeup, to the rites of passage of the local virgins and the education of the local youth, including one who thinks serious television is a network called PMS.
Mr. Bologna and Ms. Taylor have collaborated on films like ''Lovers and Other Strangers'' in 1970, ''Made for Each Other'' in 1971 and ''Mixed Company'' in 1974. After ''Love Is All There Is,'' one can only share with the Cappamezzas' clientele a desire for more, more.
''Love Is All There Is'' is rated R. (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The English is bawdy enough; one can only guess at the Italian, and those unclad love candles do manage to incite some sex.
LOVE IS ALL THERE IS
Written and directed by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna; director of photography, Alan Jones; edited by Nicholas Eliopoulos and Dennis M. O'Connor; music by Jeff Beal; production designer, Ron Norsworthy; produced by Elliott Kastner; released by the Samuel Goldwyn Company. Running time: 98 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Lainie Kazan (Sadie), Joseph Bologna (Mike), Barbara Carrera (Maria), Paul Sorvino (Piero), Renee Taylor (Mona), Nathaniel Marston (Rosario) and Angelina Jolie (Gina).
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