REVIEWED - MAMBO ITALIANO: Moonstruck meets The Birdcage in this comic soufflé blending stock Italian characteris from the former with the latter's humorous spin on the difficulties of being gay in a conservative environment. This concoction is topped off with dollops of mildly cheesy Italian tunes and spiced with the gay-appropriated anthem, I Will Survive.

The setting is Montreal, where two childhood friends rediscover each other in their early twenties and move in together as gay lovers. Nino (Peter Miller) is a cop who is terrified of putting a toe out of the closet. Angelo (Luke Kirby), an aspirant screenwriter, wants to come out. When he does, to the horror of Nino and both their families, the consequences are obvious but regularly entertaining.

Briskly paced by director Emile Gaudreault, this breezy comedy plays like a movie from a bygone era, one that preceded not just the acute political satire of The Birdcage, itself a sophisticated reworking of La Cage aux Folles, but also the far more adventurous explorations of gay themes by directors such as Todd Haynes and Pedro Almódovar.

Mambo Italiano is traditionally shaped theatrical farce, and while it's easy to imagine how well Steve Galluccio's original play would have worked on the stage, its origins are smoothly disguised in the opened-out screenplay. The audience with whom I saw the movie - at the London Film Festival on a grey Sunday evening last November - lapped up the humour all the way to its coyly cosy resolution.