Angelo is 30 years old and still living at home with his clingy parents, but one of the very many family traditions in his house in Montreal’s Little Italy is that you only leave when you die, or when you get married. For Angelo, the latter is not an option as he is gay ….. but nevertheless he somehow finds the courage to face his parents to tell them part of the truth ….. he’s getting his own apartment in the city..jpeg)
Now sooner has he settled in when the place is burglarised, but as fate would have it the hot looking Policeman who comes to investigate is none other Nino his best friend from High School. The guys more than re-kindle their friendship, and they actually end up making out which, eventually leads to them being live-in lovers. Fearful of being found out they both remain firmly in the closet that is until Angelo decides he wants to come clean with his family. Coming out results in so much mass hysteria from both families that macho policeman Nino starts to having second thoughts about being gay. When his mother contrives a dinner party to fix both boys up with nice Italian girls to get them through this ‘gay phase’ it half works. Nino picks a big-haired pushy business woman, whilst Angelo picks that moment to unleash an angry tirade against his parents for his ‘dreadful’ life.
Made in 2003 just after the mega success of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, this hilarious gay romantic comedy does a fond but clumsy ethnic bashing job on the Italian Community …. the one Angelo’s father claimed settled in Montreal by mistake thinking it was the USA! With some wonderful one liners, an exceptionally talented cast who love to act big, this has the feel of a good old-fashioned 1950’s comedy that makes you really want to laugh even though its so steeped in stereotypes and cliches.
It’s easier enough to pick holes in this wee Canadian movie. Angelo’s verbal lashing of his parents was unnecessarily excessive as was making poor Nino marry that ‘putano’, and there really was zero chemistry between the Angelo and the man who eventually became his official boyfriend. But that said, unlike the critics of the day, I really warmed to this heartwarming corny story and all its little side plots, and I can never ever resist an (almost ) happy ending like this.
