'Queens': Full-tilt silliness

Taking Spain's recent legalization of same-sex marriage as its starting point, "Queens" could almost be called "My Big Fat Gay Wedding." Except, as directed with a certain sass by Pedro Almodóvar-wannabe Manuel Gómez Pereira, this comic farce is more about their mothers than the collective grooms.

Regent Releasing 'Queens' B- The verdict: Not bad for what it is. Director: Manuel Gómez Pereira Starring: Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes and Verónica Forqué, Mercedes Sampietro, Betiana Blum Run time: 107 minutes Release date: August 25, 2006 Language: Spanish with English subtitles. Rating: R for sexual content, brief nudity and language. On the web Official movie site [an error occurred while processing this directive]

The setting is Spain's first gay and lesbian mass wedding, in which 20 couples will tie the knot. The film ties itself to three of those couples (six very nice-looking guys, with problems of their own) whose respective moms make up a formidable group.

Magda (Carmen Maura), who runs an upscale hotel catering to gays, has a husband she's bored with and a chef who's leading a strike against her — on the day of the wedding reception. Helena (Mercedes Sampietro), a judge who'd decided to be out of town as a way of avoiding the whole thing, finds she may have to change her plans.

Nymphomaniac Nuria (Verónica Forqué) is bound to end up with yet another inappropriate partner. Outgoing Ofelia (Betiana Blum), who's arrived from Argentina with her Old English Sheepdog in tow, wants to stay for three months, not the one week she'd originally promised. And wealthy Reyes (Marisa Paredes), a famous actress who's always mistaken for Carmen Maura (a nice inside joke), is distressed her son is in love with her gardener's son.

Broad, bouncy and brightly colored, the picture suggests not so much Almodóvar, but those Hollywood sex comedies in the early '60s with names like "Under the Yum Yum Tree" and "Send Me No Flowers." The full-tilt silliness can be tedious, and the inescapable subtext — gay sons are begat by over-the-top mothers — is a misplaced cliché, especially given how jolly the rest of it tries to be.

Still, you'll never be bored and there's simply something appealing about a movie that celebrates the charms of older women. We may be deep in Telemundo territory, but that doesn't diminish the glow-in-the-dark charisma of these impressive ladies.