I don't fully understand why Spain has become Europe's premier producer of screwball gay comedies, but this is undeniably the case. Some credit goes to Pedro Almodovar, who hit the ground running with the delightful Law of Desire in 1987, starring a young, scantily clad Antonio Banderas. Now Spain's progressive politics make it the first Catholic country in Europe to sanction same-sex marriages. These facts, taken in combination, make the production of a film like Queens almost de rigueur.
Director Manuel Gomez Pereira assembles four of Spain's most popular leading ladies (Marisa Paredes, Mercedes Sampietro, Veronica Forque, and Carmen Maura) and imports the talented Norma Aleandro from Argentina to form a quintet of mothers preparing for the same-sex marriages of their sons. Three gay male couples get ready to take their vows in Madrid, but as the mothers start inserting themselves into the preparations, everything goes awry for both the male queens and their regal parents.
Pereira, with the assistance of two additional writers, cobbles together a screenplay that unfortunately is almost incomprehensible. His initial challenge was to tell the story of the three gay couples and to integrate it with the stories of their parents. This daunting task proves to be the undoing of Queens as it quickly becomes impossible to keep track of who's on first. To further complicate matters, Pereira adds the additional burden of scenes presented out of chronological sequence. He prefaces jarring flashbacks and flash-forwards with little signs that read "Four Hours Earlier" or "Three Hours Later." The result is a jumbled mess that makes Memento look like Little Red Riding Hood .
Queens has a sensational cast and many wonderful moments, with a particularly memorable performance from Veronica Forque. As Nuria, Forque plays a sexual compulsive who cannot stop having sex with men, even on the way to her son's wedding. For Nuria, the more inappropriate the sexual conquest, the more irresistible he becomes. One of her sexual escapades includes a roll in the hay with the man her son is going to marry. Forque's daffy helplessness in the face of her sex addiction results in some hilarious moments.
Although Queens doesn't quite come together in a cohesive fashion, it certainly hits all the marks for political correctness. The filmmaker portrays Spain as a country with a sense of humor, intelligence, and tolerance that should be an example for the world to follow. With so much goodness up there on the screen, it almost seems ungrateful to criticize the film for its technical faults.