After viewing the heartbreaking love tale from the Netflix series From Scratch, which is based on a true event, thousands of viewers around the world have been left inconsolable. The Watcher was the most-watched title on the streaming service for a full week before the show’s October 21 release and subsequently lost that position to it.
The series was co-created by Tembi and her sister, Attica Locke. When she first met Saro, he was a chef, and she was an art history student studying abroad. Although some could claim that when they first met on the streets of Florence, Italy, it was love at first sight, however, Tembi described the event in her interviews slightly differently.
It is the most recent Netflix series to be published on the streaming site and arrives with great excitement because Reece Witherspoon’s production company made it. Many viewers of the program wonder if it is from Scratch based on a true story or if the author’s imagination is at work. We should look into it!
What Is From Scratch All About?
In the movie From Scratch, Amy Wheeler, an American, meets chef Lino Ortolano, a Sicilian, by happenstance. What happens next is a romantic fantasy punctuated by a few challenges that both overcome together. Lino’s diagnosis of a rare kind of cancer, however, puts an end to their world.
Nzingha Stewart, an Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and director, is in charge of the eight-episode love drama that stars Zoe Saldana and Eugenio Mastrandrea. The show has swiftly climbed to the top 10 on Netflix, generating a lot of discussion on social media about its actual narrative.
Is From Scratch Based On A True Story?
It is true that From Scratch is based on Tembi Locke’s 2019 memoir of the same name. The novel is based on the real-life events of Tembi and Saro Gullo, her first husband, whom she met and experienced passionate feelings for in Italy, despite the fact that the characters’ names are made up.
However, Saro’s 2012 cancer diagnosis cruelly put an end to their romance. And after detailing her experience with love and grief in her novel, Netflix decided to adapt their beautiful tale to the screen. Tembi Locke is a co-creator and executive producer of the limited series. Additionally, the From Scratch showrunner is her sister Attica.
Tembi discussed the series with Entertainment Weekly and said: “One of the things about families and one of our goals as writers was to highlight the nuanced intricacies present in every family. The manners in which we help one another, fall down on one another, get back up, and apologize. We wanted to accomplish that with love and humor.”
Tembi spent her post-high school years in Italy, where she met Saro, just like Amy in From Scratch. Tembi later returned to the US while Gullo remained in Florence; however, they later met up again in New York before relocating to Los Angeles together.
After being married in 1995, Saro was given the diagnosis with a rare cancer kind called leiomyosarcoma in 2002. Saro had ten years of therapy before tragically succumbing to cancer in 2012. Like the Netflix version, Tembi and Saro adopted a daughter called Zoela while Saro was receiving therapy.
What Differs Between The Netflix Version And The Original Story?
In contrast to the television drama, the novel follows Tembi’s three summers in Sicily with her kid as she starts to put together a life without her husband in his little hamlet. Though a portion of this story is depicted for viewers in the series’ concluding episode.
The book that served as the series’ inspiration delves deeper into the bonds Tembi forms with Saro’s family after his death by examining how she learns the therapeutic benefits of straightforward fresh food, the embrace of a close-knit community, and time-tested customs and wisdom that illuminate a way forward.
According to Tembi, she changed the names of the Netflix characters in From Scratch to provide a “psychological space” between them and real-life characters. However, Tembi admits that she enjoyed making up a different version of her family and that the characters’ new names do have some particular connotations.
Zoela, the daughter of Tembi and Saro, selected the on-screen name Idalia, while Attica decided to go by the name Zora in honor of the author Zora Neale Hurston. The character’s name Amahle is shortened to Amy in the television program. Tembi’s original name is Tembekile, although when she was younger, she went by the moniker Tammy.
Tembi stated in an interview, “Amy was given an Afrocentric name as a wink and a homage to the manner in which names may alter. But Amahle is the name she goes by with her parents.” Seven years after Saro’s passing, in April 2019, Tembi Locke’s autobiography, “From Scratch,” was released.