#MoviesUnder90: Mambo Italiano
Somewhere between Moonstruck and Moonlight, at 88 minutes.
Every week, we highlight a must-see film that likely takes less time to watch than the average weeknight binge of a TV series. With Pride Month in full swing, this week’s pick for #MoviesUnder90 is look back to 2003’s Mambo Italiano, streaming on Tribeca Shortlist but not currently on Netflix on Hulu.
Like the song that the film takes its title from, Mambo Italiano is a snappy, delightful piece about navigating Italian-American hybridity. This film however tells the story of this navigation in the context of a city with yet another language (the French and English-speaking Montréal, Canada), and the coming of age of a gay protagonist already caught in a tangle of conflicting cultural codes. Amidst a polyphony of languages and expectations, Angelo Barberini struggles and learns to find his voice.
Mambo Italiano could easily be compared to its contemporary, the ethnic comedy-romance My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but takes more cues from a movie like Moonstruck: It has a vivid sense of place, spins around generations of rotating lovers, and effectively conveys the burden of being a romantic rebel within a small community of characters.
Unlike My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the stakes of disappointing a melodramatic, traditional family are played out more fully, and not only for laughs. This queer, Canadian charmer captures the Montréal community feeling, showing iconic Italian-owned spots like Dante Hardware (where you can buy a gun in the back and an espresso machine at the front). The French-inflected accents also speak to the specificity of this film’s world, and take the rom-com to a new place.
Stream Mambo Italiano tonight with a FREE trial of Tribeca Shortlist.
