Melissa McCarthy gave a career-best (and Oscar-nominated) performance in last year’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?, a period piece set in New York City. In The Kitchen, the Bridesmaids star is going even further back in Manhattan’s history to play the wife of an Irish mobster who takes over organized crime operations in the 1970s in Hell’s Kitchen after the FBI arrests her husband. She’s joined by Elisabeth Moss and, in a rare dramatic role, Tiffany Haddish.
Andrea Berloff, who directed and wrote the script (her previous credits include Straight Outta Compton), has said that she wanted the “excitement of women in a Mob movie to permeate through the casting, so I cast people you wouldn’t expect across the board. If we’re defying stereotypes, let’s defy them all over. Who says women can’t run the Mafia? Who says comedians can’t do drama?”
Here’s the official plot summary:
The Kitchen stars Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss as three 1978 Hell’s Kitchen housewives whose mobster husbands are sent to prison by the FBI. Left with little but a sharp ax to grind, the ladies take the Irish mafia’s matters into their own hands — proving unexpectedly adept at everything from running the rackets to taking out the competition… literally.
based on the Vertigo comic-book series, The Kitchen, which also stars Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, Margo Martindale, Common, and Bill Camp, opens on August 8.
