"Being
Italian is living in denial" is the most quotable
line of the silly Canadian film Mambo Italiano, directed
by Émile Gaudreault. Two themes are mixed together.
One is the experience of growing up Italian within a family,
including father Gino (played by Paul Sorvino) and mother
María (played by Ginette Reno), who migrated from
Italy to Montréal, carrying with them a lot of superego
phobias about face and respect. The other theme is finding
out that one is gay, but of course gay within an Italian
homophobic family. At the center of the soap opera is Angelo,
whose best friend as a child was his mother's sister Yolanda
(played by Tara Nicodemo). After dancing the mambo with
him at home, she died under mysterious circumstances in
her mid-thirties. As a young boy, Angelo also enjoyed playing
with a delightful friend, Nino Paventi. But Nino abandoned
that friendship in high school when a nasty rumor spread
that non-macho Angelo was gay. According to Italian tradition,
we are told, children leave the home of their parents only
when they either marry or die. After graduating from school,
twentysomething Angelo (played by Luke Kirby) and his former
friend Nino (played by Peter Miller) are unmarried, as
is Angelo's sister Anna (played by Claudia Ferri), all
of whom are tormented by the dictates of their parents,
who spin guilt trips on everyone so thick that they exist
in neurotic cocoons, unable to lead independent lives.
Angelo, for example, is so accustomed to a negative environment
that he insults customers in his job as computer reservations
clerk, and his attempt at writing screenplays as a possible
alternative occupation is a flop. Unable to attract men,
Anna sees psychiatrists and takes valium. Angelo and Nino
stay at home and take the abuse, which mother and father
also dish out to each other, doubtless because the father
is stuck at a dead-end job that he hates. One day, Angelo
decides to make a "jail break." He announces
to his distraught parents that he will live alone in his
own apartment. Shortly after his liberation, he meets adult
Nino, who is a hunky police officer, and they get together
for old time's sake on a camping trip. Suddenly, Nino takes
the initiative to have sex, and soon they are living together
as a couple, but Angelo wants love and Nino just wants
sex. Indeed, Nino wants the fact that they are gay kept
a secret, not only to preserve respect with his fellow
police officers but also with his homophobic single mother
Lina (played by Mary Walsh). Frustrated at living in a
closeted sex-only relationship, Angelo wants to out the
relationship so that he can enjoy a real gay lover. One
evening he does so to his parents in response to their
continued verbal abuse about his new living arrangement.
His mother than blabs to Lina, upsetting Nino, so he goes
to a straight pickup bar, meets a former unmarried classmate,
Rosetta (played by Pierrette Robitaille), and contemplates
going straight. One evening, Nino's mother invites Lina
as an unexpected guest to a dinner arranged by Angelo's
parents. Nino is then caught in a triangle, with Angelo
and Lina demanding to know which of the two is his choice.
Nino quickly decides to break up with Angelo. In the next
few weeks later, Angelo desperately tries to rekindle the
relationship, but his efforts boomerang. To end Angelo's
advances, Nino decides to get married, which of course
simplifies choices for Angelo, as he is now free to look
for another partner. Angelo is not only successful in his
search but in time regains the support of his parents and
achieves his ambition to be a serious TV scriptwriter (by
turning the story of his dysfunctional family into a successful
sit-con that even amuses his parents). As for Nino, he
has every prospect of living with a dominating wife who
can refer pejoratively to his former gay relationship to
trump any assertions of his independence, but that eventuality
is neither stated nor even implied in the film despite
his later gay liaison on a camping trip. He is depicted
as a bisexual who picks up men and drops them unapologetically
to preserve his macho self-image. Mambo Italiano says that
mental health is promoted by outing oneself as gay rather
than trying to please those who are homophobic, hardly
a novel message. One line in the film perhaps gives away
the biggest mistake in the script, which tries to turn
the successful comedy of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
upside down into the tragicomedy of Mambo Italiano: Instead
of clever Greek wit and inventive problemsolving, there
are just too many crude Italian insults and slaps. Perhaps
the stage play on which the film is based, written by Steve
Gallucio, has better timing to produce real humor. When
straight couples at a West Hollywood screening emit much
more laughter than gays, one must conclude that the plot
is too retro to make a serious contribution as a gay-oriented
film. MH
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