WARNING: The following contains spoilers to The Many Saints of Newark, available on HBO Max and theaters.
So much of The Sopranos builds itself off a world rich in interpersonal history and deceitful relationships that a prequel offers a valuable opportunity for fans to gain direct insight into that world. The Many Saints of Newark presents that opportunity, but while providing a window into the past, it also keeps a constant reminder of future events yet to occur within the world of the film.
One moment, in particular, could have been powerful as Tony Soprano greets his infant nephew, Christopher Moltisanti. It could have been a great dramatic moment, but unfortunately, the movie stumbles into ham-fistedness that ruins some of its luster.
The film opens with narration from Christopher himself, a haunting presence cast over the film given the character's death at the end of the HBO series. In his final scene, Chris' struggles with addiction come to a head when he wrecks the car he and Tony are in. When Tony notices that a piece of debris pierced the child seat in the back of the car, showing how Chris' addiction made him a danger to his own family, Tony pinched his nephew's nose shut to suffocate the life out of him. In Many Saints, the narrating Christopher refers to that event while introducing Tony, who's a child in the context of the prequel.
A later scene makes the dramatic tension even greater. At a family gathering, a now teenage Tony beckons over his mentor Dickie whose infant son, Christopher, he wants to play with. As soon as the boy comes near Tony, however, he starts crying. The rest of the characters balk because apparently this always happens whenever Tony is around the child. As a moment unto itself, it could have worked well, and indeed Tony's hurt look at his inability to care for Christopher echoes the later struggles in their relationship as he attempts to mentor Christopher the way that Christopher's father mentored him. But then, Many Saints takes it too far.
"I don’t know what it is, it’s like I scare him or something," the young Tony says. His Old Auntie provides the ham-fisted explanation, "Some babies, when they come into the world, know all kinds of things from the other side." The moment could work entirely without that line, and just simply leaving Tony's question unanswered could have been so much more effective. The Sopranos made much of its reputation off of providing no easy answers and trusting its viewership to figure out puzzling questions for themselves, but Many Saints shows a lack of trust by shoehorning the line in.
It also begs the question: why would anybody say something like that? It obviously brings no comfort to Tony, providing some ominous portent of future events nobody present has any knowledge of instead. Indeed, given that the narration already pointed out that Tony kills Christopher later in their lives, that facet of their relationship should already be at the forefront of the audience's mind. What could have been a genuinely interesting interaction ends up spilling over into overdramatization.
The Sopranos built much of its reputation off a masterful mix of realism and fantasy. Supernatural elements are certainly nothing new to the show, but it always knew when to rein in those elements. It seems this was a line of dialogue that somehow slipped by the creator's usual impulses and one which weakens a central feature of the story.
The relationship between Tony and Christopher is, in a lot of ways, what the movie is all about. Since Christopher barely features in the film, the moments when he appears are all the more important to get right. Unfortunately, Many Saints gets it wrong.
To see Tony's early interactions with Christopher, The Many Saints of Newark is now in theaters and on HBO Max.