THE KITCHEN
There’s a new mob in town
Director Andrea Berloff
Starring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss
“I know I should say something like ‘I was intimidated’ or ‘I was overwhelmed’ or ‘I was pissing myself’, but it was just, so, so much fun,” says Andrea Berloff of directing her debut feature after more than a decade spent writing screenplays for the likes of World Trade Center, Straight Outta Compton and Jamie Foxx thriller Sleepless.
Adapted from the graphic novel by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle, The Kitchen is a mafia movie – but not as you know it. “We all know what a mob story is,” says Berloff, “but seeing it from a women’s perspective – not as a comedy or as a joke, but in a really grounded, intense way – felt like such an interesting, fresh take on the genre. I just fell in love with the whole thing.”
As per the graphic novel, The Kitchen starts off with half the New York Irish mob being sent to prison in the mid ’70s, leaving their wives to run the family business. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss lead the gang, with McCarthy continuing to play it straight after Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Moss giving us her first straight-up criminal, and Girl Trip’s Haddish trying drama for the first time (“You have no idea what she’s capable of”), heading up a cast just as original as the premise.
“There’s no African-American character in the novel,” says Berloff. “But having just come off Straight Outta Compton, I felt strongly that I didn’t want to write a movie about three white women. I also tried to stop watching all the big mob movies as soon as I started writing. I very much wanted to make my own thing. We’re so accepting of men in these kind of tough-guy roles. It’s fine having male antiheroes, but I think it’ll be really interesting to see if women get that same opportunity.” PB THE KITCHEN OPENS IN SEPTEMBER.