Mambo Italiano, a comedy adapted by Quebec filmmaker Émile Gaudreault from Steve Galluccio's successful play, has a lot in common with its protagonist. Both the film and its hero, Angelo -- a young Italian man who comes out to his traditionalist parents -- have roots in the Italian-Canadian experience. Both are concerned with the struggle to reconcile old-world tradition with new-world freedoms. And both are up against standards and comparisons that aren't necessarily fair.

"I could think of worse things than being compared to a movie that has made $200 million," says Galluccio, addressing the barrage of comparisions Mambo has gotten to last year's breakout ethnic hit, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

"It doesn't irritate me -- it's just that the only similarity is that it's an ethnic comedy. Yesterday I was reading in The Globe and Mail about 'the new ethnic blockbuster.' First-generation Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, whatever are coming of age and writing their stories, and you'll probably see it a lot more."

The films do share a few traits: a theatre pedigree, a boistrous Mediterranean flavour and a family conflict caused by colliding generational ideas. But Mambo is distinguished by a topical subject, and a campy, energized style that makes use of clever angles, obsessive detail and a jumpy, neurotic pace. Hopping from scene to scene with manic cuts, and wallowing in Patricia Christie's blazing sets and Francesca Chamberland's gaudy costumes, the film plays more like an edgy cartoon than a typical family drama, eschewing sober realism for baroque fun.

"I like fast-paced movies," says Gaudrealt, who also directed the 2001 comedy Nuit de noces. "I love Danny Boyle. For the rhythm, that's what I like the best. When Steve and I would sit and write the script from the play, I really wanted that if somebody didn't know it was based on a play, they couldn't get it.

"Right from the beginning, I really wanted to try to create kind of Little Italy-plus. I wanted the Italian community to recognize themselves, but I wanted it to be slick -- like cool kitsch. I didn't want any grey. I was thinking, 'Canadian movies, they have enough grey.'"

Adding to Mambo's hyperreal tone are characters who verge on caricature, but who often carry the film with their lusty, hyperbolic personalities. Paul Sorvino and Ginette Reno play Angelo's woeful parents, who try to moan and gesticulate away their disbelief at Angelo's scandalous sexuality.

"It was either Paul Sorvino or Danny Aiello -- we didn't have many choices for that character," says Gaudreault of Gino, Sorvino's character. "We gave it to Paul first, and he loved it. Mary Walsh [who plays the mother of Nino, Angelo's hesitant squeeze] was the same -- we were looking for an actor from Canada who's able to be bigger than life."

Casting Angelo -- a role eventually given to Luke Kirby, an experienced theatre actor -- was an especially tough task. The character had to satisfy both Gaudreault, who Angelo to be younger and nicer than he appears in the stage version, and Galluccio, who had to choose an actor who could both channel his own personal neuroses (Galluccio wrote the original Mambo based on experiences with his own family), and maintain the strong sense of beleaguered fun that made the thearical version a success.

"This is a script that you could play very seriously," Galluccio says. "Most guys who came in [to audition] went with the Robert de Niro -- that kind of brooding thing. But as soon as Luke came in it was fantastic.

"The thing about Luke is, he appropriated me. I'd see him on set, and people would say, 'It's amazing how much he looks like you. He's got your mannerisms.' A year later, I saw him, and he was taller. But when we were on set, I have the worst posture in the world, and he was walking like that."

While often hilarious, the film's performances skirt stereotypes that some might consider derogatory. But Galluccio says the ultimately affectionate depiction of Montreal's Italian community has elicited more amore than ire.

"From the Italian community, I would say the response has been extremely positive.... Of course there's some naysayers who say they were offended or whatever, but I think it's a minority.

"On the whole, when I go to Little Italy, everyone recognizes me, and they come up to me and say, 'Thank you for writing this.' They're so happy and they're really, really proud."

The film, which is peppered with US and Canadian jokes as well as the Italian schtick -- in a desperate attempt to make Angelo "normal," Gino suggests he take up hockey -- is as much about Montreal as it is Italy, playing up the city's rich European feel.

"I was born in Montreal, and I love the city," says Galluccio. "I wanted it to be another character in the movie, and an integral part of the movie.

"Where Maria and Gino live, that's typical Montreal architecture. Montreal Italian architecture, I don't think you can find anywhere else -- the white brick walls with the arches, and all that."

Gaudreault, however, hopes the film will appeal to a wide audience in the same way Greek Wedding did, strumming the universal chords of family strife and sorting out how to belong in a new place.

"So many people of other ethnic origins have come to us and told us it's the same," he says. "I think for immigrants, coming to a new country is scary. So they want safety and security -- that's common to all of them. I think that one of the keys to the movie being sold in 30 countries is that culture is universal."

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1