Peter Canavese
2006-06-30 12:52:02 UTC
Pleasantly fluffy but depthless...each story develops a worst-case scenario that proceeds to a too-comforting, too-swift resolution.
Pleasantly fluffy but depthless, Manuel Gómez Pereira's Queens depicts the run-up to Spain's first legal gay wedding, a mass affair with twenty couples. The title is a pun: though partially about four gay couples, Queens focuses on their neurotic, drama-queen mothers, played by four of Spain's top actresses (Verónica Forqué, Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes, and Mercedes Sampietro) and Argentinian Betiana Blum. Somehow, it's no surprise that Pereira and writers Yolanda García Serrano and Joaquín Oristrell overtly refer to Almodóvar. Intersecting storylines cleverly shuttle forward and back in time, but each story develops a worst-case scenario that proceeds to a too-comforting, too-swift resolution. Still, if you can stand the overacting and cheeky in-jokes (Marisa Paredes' actress character being mistaken for famous actress...Carmen Maura), Queens is colorful fun.